Heirs of the Seven Swords of the Qin Dynasty

The thirty-sixth year of Emperor Qin Shihuang’s reign, late September.

The much-anticipated Northern Tour of Ying Zheng came to an end. The Northern Tour convoy completely left Shangjun, entered the Neishi area, and embarked on the journey back to Xianyang.

It is expected to return to Xianyang before New Year's Day on October 1st.

As the Northern Tour came to an end, a piece of news quickly spread throughout the world.

The other forces had been waiting for many days for the "excitement" and finally there was a clear result.

Before leaving Fushi City, the capital of Shangjun County, Ying Zheng severely reprimanded his eldest son Fusu, who had been exiled to the north as a military supervisor.

The reason was that he did not discipline his subordinates strictly, allowing officials from the north to form cliques and collude with each other for personal gain, thus disrupting the laws and moral principles of the court.

Along with Fusu, a large number of local officials from various counties in the north were also reprimanded by Ying Zheng.

However, they were not treated like Fusu's own sons. Not only were they criticized, but they were also demoted and transferred.

The better ones were demoted and transferred to other places, while the worse ones were directly dismissed.

This official transfer can be described as a major earthquake in the northern officialdom, affecting seven counties and nearly fifty officials at all levels.

At first glance, there are not many people. On average, there are less than ten people in a county, or even less than eight people. Compared with the Zhu family in later generations, it is simply not worth mentioning.

But in fact, this is already a lot - these nearly fifty officials are all serious administrative officials.

The number of bureaucrats in the empire was very limited. The total number of administrative officials in an entire county was estimated to be only 20 to 30 people, and as many as 40 to 50.

If it is a small county with only a few counties under its jurisdiction, there may be only a dozen or twenty officials.

Of course, if we count all the miscellaneous petty officials such as the village clerk, the village treasurer, the village assistant, the patrol guard, the three elders, the pavilion chief, the pavilion assistant, the pavilion marquis... and so on, there are indeed a lot of them.

But they...are indeed not worthy of the word 'official'.

In the later Song Dynasty, there were so many redundant officials and staff that these messy things were not even as good as real officials.

The imperial bureaucracy was immature and the officials were much smaller, so they were even less important.

It can be said that Ying Zheng's wave of official transfers directly destroyed most of the results achieved by Liusha in the northern officialdom over the years.

However, this does not mean that Liusha has completely lost control over the northern officialdom.

Because Ying Zheng's operation was actually very forced - officials represent power, and power cannot be vacuumed for a moment.

After Ying Zheng dealt with the existing officials, he had to immediately arrange a group of new ones to replace them.

Not all punished officials were transferred away from the North, but Ying Zheng still needed at least thirty people to fill the vacancies.

But he definitely couldn't find so many people now - to be more precise, he couldn't find so many new officials who were reliable and loyal to him to fill the holes in the North in a short period of time.

Compared with the problem of manpower shortage that only began to emerge after years of struggle, the number of officials in the empire has always been stretched to the limit and has never been enough.

Otherwise, the central court's ruling power over the local areas would not have been weakening day by day - there were not enough available officials, and Ying Zheng could only promote a large number of local prominent families to be officials.

This group of people are all fence-sitters. When the empire is at its peak, they are all loyal. But as soon as they realize the empire is weak, they will immediately start to pretend to obey.

Now even the censor system responsible for supervision has collapsed.

Ying Zheng did not have the manpower to rectify the administration of officials, otherwise he would not have stabilized local rule through repeated tours.

Therefore, the newly appointed officials in the north - whether they were newly selected locally or transferred from other places - were definitely not completely loyal to the emperor.

It is easy for Liusha to deal with people who are not the emperor's men.

Of course, Ying Zheng could also transfer some sufficiently loyal officials from other places to curb the re-development of Liusha in the north.

However, no one would normally do this kind of operation of robbing Peter to pay Paul unless they have no other choice.

In addition to Fusu and the northern officials, there was another person who was blamed - Meng Tian, ​​the commander of the Great Wall Army.

Ying Zheng reprimanded Meng Tian for his lax military management, which led to internal corruption and manipulation. While he dealt with a group of officers, he also deprived Meng Tian of some of his military power.

The Great Wall Legion is a colloquial name, but it actually refers to the northern border army.

After the war in Henan ended, part of the northern border troops were sent to garrison various border areas to prevent the wolf tribe from invading the south again, and part of them were arranged to build the Great Wall - this is also the origin of the name of the Great Wall Corps.

Ying Zheng assigned all the soldiers who were to be sent to guard the border to Wang Li, and ordered him to be fully responsible for the defense of the northern border, while Meng Tian only retained the part related to building the Great Wall, and his duties were focused on supervision.

As a result, Meng Tian's military power was reduced by about 30%.

Originally he had 200,000 northern border troops under his command, but now only about 150,000 real "Great Wall Legion" are left.

When these three pieces of news came out, it can be said that the whole world was shocked.

Anyone who knows something about the situation in the north knows that the emperor has dealt a heavy blow to the quicksand.

The reprimand of the eldest son Fusu further reduced his already slim hopes of becoming the crown prince.

The transfer of officials has greatly reduced the influence of the Quicksand on the North.

As for the change of Meng Tian’s military power, there is no need to mention it, it was the most fatal blow.

To be honest, although many forces expected that Ying Zheng's northern tour would definitely lead to conflicts with Liusha, they really didn't expect Ying Zheng to be so decisive and ruthless.

It is hard not to suspect that Ying Zheng was deliberately weakening the power of his subordinates while the leader of Liusha, Gu Xun, was away.

Of course, it doesn’t matter what Ying Zheng thinks. What matters is that in everyone’s eyes, this represents Ying Zheng’s intention to further weaken the eldest prince’s faction, which has been gradually losing power.

They had even started to take action against the Imperial Master Gu Xun - considering that there had been rumors of a conflict between the Emperor and the Imperial Master a long time ago, this was understandable.

The emperor's attitude often determines how those below him act.

The officials in the central court were the ones who responded fastest to Ying Zheng's actions.

The eldest son's faction, which had been losing personnel, suddenly lost several important members - important in the eyes of outsiders because they held relatively high official positions.

It may be doubtful whether Ying Zheng has completely destroyed Liusha's layout in the north, but the eldest prince's faction's voice in the central court is indeed about to be reduced to zero.

This made some officials who were loyal to the eldest prince Fusu very discouraged, and at the same time they couldn't help but blame Gu Xun for disappearing at this juncture.

But Zhao Gao was delighted.

He had been ordered to investigate Liusha's actions in the north, but in fact, he did not find sufficient evidence until the northern patrol team entered Fushi City in Shangjun.

Although intelligence collected from all sides indicated that Liusha's behavior had crossed the line, it was not sufficient.

It's not that it's not enough to convict Liusha, but that it's not enough to make Ying Zheng determined to take ruthless action.

At that time, Zhao Gao was still very disappointed, worried that Ying Zheng would show mercy and let Liusha and Fusu off the hook.

As a result, after Ying Zheng and Fusu met, they began to use thundering methods on Liusha, slashing him hard to make him bleed.

For Zhao Gao, the extent of the trauma caused to Liusha by Ying Zheng's move was secondary. The most important thing was that it almost completely cut off the possibility of Fusu's involvement in the throne.

As for the losses suffered by Liusha... As long as Guxun did not fall, any damage would not hurt Liusha. Zhao Gao saw this matter very clearly.

Unfortunately, he had no idea that Liusha really wanted to rebel, and he didn't know that Ying Zheng's actions had indeed brought Liusha a lot of trouble.

Fortunately...it is still at a level that can be accepted and dealt with as soon as possible.

………………

Fusu's reprimand and the transfer of officials in the north had little impact on the people.

What difficulties the officials encounter are not within the scope of concern of ordinary believers.

Although Fusu had a very good reputation among the people, and common people generally did not want anything to happen to him, but... he was just scolded by his father, which was not a big deal in the eyes of the people!

As for the northern officials, no one cared at all.

After Ying Zheng left, Fusu did not move back to his own mansion.

The former 'Ergongzi Mansion' was sealed up by Fusu, because it had served as the emperor's temporary palace. He was both a minister and a son, and it was not appropriate for him to overstep his authority.

Fusu had built a new mansion for himself early on. It was much smaller, but sufficient for his use.

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The land in the north is not valuable, and the labor in the north is not valuable either - of course, it doesn't matter if it is valuable, Fusu spent his own money to build the house, and it is not up to others to comment.

In Fusu's new mansion, Fusu sat on the main seat in the reception room with a slightly dejected expression, and said to Meng Tian who was sitting below him:
"General Meng, this time it was Fusu who acted recklessly and implicated you."

"I'm so sorry."

"You are too kind, sir." Meng Tian quickly raised his hand to salute and replied, "It is my incompetence that has failed the Emperor and you, sir."

The reason Meng Tian was punished was because of corruption in the army and his poor governance.

The root of this so-called corruption was the batch of supplies that Meng Tian took over from Han Fei.

That batch of supplies posed a big problem. Although neither Luowang nor Heibingtai had grasped any key clues or intelligence that could lead to the truth, those supplies were ultimately difficult to explain.

Ying Zheng did not investigate the matter thoroughly, but just gave a light punishment and a severe warning in the name of "corruption".

Although the consequences seem serious, in fact... Meng Tian doesn't care much.

Military power is a very empty thing.

There was only one person who actually held the military power in the empire, and that was Emperor Ying Zheng - he even shelved the position of the highest military officer, the Grand Marshal.

Meng Tian had a high prestige among the northern border troops, but it was just a high prestige.

These 200,000 border troops essentially obeyed the orders of the central court and the emperor, rather than the orders of Meng Tian.

The only force Meng Tian actually controlled was the Golden Fire Cavalry.

Of course, this "real power" does not mean that if he gives an order, 30,000 golden fire cavalrymen will dare to follow him in rebellion.

It can only be said that when it comes to mobilizing the Golden Fire Cavalry, Meng Tian is more... comfortable, casual, and relaxed.

Therefore, as long as the emperor does not move the Golden Fire Cavalry, Meng Tian’s core power will not be damaged.

For example, Wang Li has not recovered from the Battle of Daze Mountain until now, even though he had just "seized" the command of tens of thousands of troops from Meng Tian.

This was not because he fought a shameful defeat of the century, but because he basically lost his battle-hardened armored soldiers.

Although the Hundred Battles Armored Soldiers suffered heavy losses after the Battle of Daze Mountain, and even the core of the strong crossbow formation suffered serious damage, the organization of the Hundred Battles Armored Soldiers was still there.

As long as it is organized, it will always be the empire's ace force... Of course, it takes quite some time to train and reorganize, and Han Xinmao is mainly doing this job in the south.

Having lost such a core force, Wang Li... and even the entire Wang family were seriously injured and suffered heavy losses.

This is also the reason why Ying Zheng chose Wang Li to come to the north to control Meng Tian.

It was because of Gu Xun's intervention that the Armored Soldiers of Hundred Battles fell into the hands of Han Xin, an unknown man (to people like Meng Tian and Wang Li).

Even though it was the emperor who made the final decision, Wang Li certainly would not and dared not blame Ying Zheng. He would only blame Gu Xun, Liusha, and the entire eldest prince's faction.

The two sides have formed a feud that will never end.

So Ying Zheng chose Wang Li (it is hard to say whether he agreed to the transfer of the Hundred Battles Armored Soldiers intentionally).

Therefore, Liusha has never considered coexisting peacefully with Wang Li, but directly regarded him as an opponent.

Fusu sighed, opened his mouth to speak, and finally swallowed his words back.

At this point, he said there was no point in apologizing any further, so let's just talk about business.

"Do you think there will be any problems with General Wang Li?"

Meng Tian thought for a moment and shook his head, "Wang Li won't make any big moves for the time being. He is probably very cautious right now."

When Wang Li first arrived in the North, he acted very radically.

Liusha saw him as someone with bad intentions, and he himself came here just to cause trouble.

Because he must gain a foothold in the North as soon as possible and gain some credit in order to stabilize his position.

If you want to gain a foothold in the north, you can either cooperate with the eldest son's faction, or step on the tiger's mouth and fight with them.

Even if he couldn't see through Ying Zheng's thoughts completely, he could at least guess about four or five points. So even if he put aside his personal grudge with Liusha, it was impossible for him to cooperate with the eldest prince's faction.

But things are different now.

Although the development process may be different from what he expected, his greatest gain did not come from his own efforts, but from the self-destruction of the eldest prince's faction.

However, the result is the most important. Wang Li is no longer as high-spirited as he was in Daze Mountain, and he does not want perfection in everything.

Wang Li, who had snatched a large piece of "fat meat" from Meng Tian, ​​no longer needed to be aggressive.

In other words, being radical is useless.

The eldest prince's faction had just been "rectified" by Ying Zheng himself. Even if Wang Li continued to cause trouble, it was impossible for Ying Zheng to take action against them again so quickly.

Unless the emperor really wants to completely eliminate this "mountain".

But if that were true, there would be no need for a Wang Li to charge forward for the emperor.

His top priority now is to consolidate the benefits he has just gained.

These tens of thousands of border troops will not obey his orders just because they are assigned to his command - one person cannot directly command tens of thousands of people, he needs to "run in" with these soldiers well.

Moreover, what he took over from Meng Tian was not only the troops, but also the important task of defending the northern border.

This is a job that can steadily accumulate military merit, but it is also a troublesome job.

If something went wrong, they would have to carry the food away without being able to finish it. Coincidentally, the winter of the new year was approaching, and the nomadic tribes in the north were beginning to stir. (End of this chapter)