A thousand-year-old family that began with the Battle of Makino

Chapter 1037: The Hundred Kingdoms Dynasty was first established, and the martial spirit marched to the South China Sea

Twenty-sixth year of the Great Chaupenin
Since Daxia pacified the south of the Yangtze River, there has been no major fighting for several years.

After hearing that Daxia had unified the world, the surrounding countries sent envoys to the court to pay tribute in the first month of the 21st year of Pingning in order to improve the friendship between the two countries.

Bai Xi saw that the country had just been settled and many things needed to be rebuilt.

Moreover, the fees for pacifying Southern Tang were extremely high, and the national treasury had long been overwhelmed. The government even issued two national debts in succession to barely support the logistics of the hundreds of thousands of troops that were sent to the south to conquer Southern Tang.

Therefore, Bai Xi was very kind to these countries that came to pay tribute, and he not only gave them generous gifts in multiples.

You also claim that the Great Emperor of the Central Plains is the common ruler of all the Xia people and that you all originated from the Central Plains, so you call yourself the "King of All the Xia People". In the name of the Son of Heaven, you confer the title of king on the rulers of various countries.

Among them, the ruler of Wa, Huairen, was named "King of Dongying", the ruler of Nanyue, Le Zhizhong, was named "King of Annan", the ruler of Srivijaya was named "King of Srivijaya", and so on.

Moreover, the Gaochang Uighurs who occupied the eastern part of the Western Regions and the Karakhanid Khanate in the west, who were driven to the northern desert by Bactria and called themselves Khitan again, all sent envoys to congratulate.

This eventually led to the famous painting "A Hundred Nations Paying Homage to Summer" by Yu Xiang, a great painter of the time and the official painter of Emperor Bai Xi.

After several years of recuperation, Daxia's politics was stable and the people were harmonious, its national strength was restored, and its granaries were abundant.

This has increased the population of the Central Plains to 40 million after only a hundred years of war, and is expected to recover to the peak population of 80 million during the pre-Tang Dynasty.

Daxia also developed new gunboats and modified more than 50 of them, not to mention the increasing production of firearms every year.

According to investigation, the Artillery Manufacturing Bureau and the Firearms Weaving Bureau under the Firearms Manufacturing Institute received unprecedented support from the Daxia military, and their scale expanded year by year.

For this purpose, Daxia specially organized a new firearms army, called the Shenji Army, with a total of 10,000 people.

The Shenji Army has a hundred artillery pieces, five thousand muskets, and ten heavy artillery pieces. It is the strongest infantry force for attacking and defending cities.

Because of its novel combat methods and new weapons, it was called the "New Army" in the military.

Xia inherited the Tang system and naturally took over some of the martial style of the former Tang.

Although in order to avoid repeating the Tang Dynasty's experience of military men becoming too powerful, the Great Xia court tried its best to develop culture and improve the status of literati, the martial spirit was still ingrained in the Xia people's bones.

Apart from minor frictions from time to time on the border and unspeakable unrest among the internal barbarians, Daxia had not seen any major war for nearly six years.

This was something that the military men, who made up more than half of the Great Xia court, could not tolerate.

Now hearing of the civil strife in the Le Dynasty in the south, they were like a group of sharks smelling blood, and they all wrote to the emperor requesting troops to attack Nanyue and recover the homeland of the Han and Tang dynasties.

Even though the civil servants in the court tried their best to resist, petitions for war appeared on Bai Xi's desk like snowflakes.

Bai Xi is now over seventy-three years old. Years of paperwork and the rapid increase in land area have already drained his body, so much so that he has to rely on medicine to maintain his spirit.

Helplessly, he had to follow the example of the previous emperor and appoint Crown Prince Bai Mu as Prime Minister and organize the Prime Minister's Council in the East Palace.

All government affairs, big or small, across the country must first be screened by the Prime Minister's Council before being submitted to him for approval.

This slightly reduced his workload.

But as he grew older, even after being screened by the Eastern Palace, the number of memorials that came to his desk continued to increase, exceeding his ability.

There was no other way. In order to prevent the neglect of government affairs, he recruited trusted eunuchs who were quick-witted and had quick wits around him.

Five eunuchs were appointed to form the Nei Shi Jian, collectively known as the "Nei Shi eunuchs", the leader was the "Seal Eunuch" and the rest were the "Pen Eunuchs".

The five eunuchs each managed other departments in the palace and managed most of the palace maids and eunuchs.

With them, memorials that come to Bai Xi can be approved by them.

He only needs to think about it and after approval, it can be sent to the Secretariat for review and executed by the Shangshu Province.

In this way, Bai Xi only needs to think for a moment, move his eyes, and move his mouth, and he can complete a memorial in an instant.

No longer limited to the imperial desk, state affairs can be handled anytime and anywhere.

Therefore, the government affairs process of Daxia became that from the local to the central government, it was then unified and classified by the Menxia Province, and then sent to the Zhengshi Hall, where the prime ministers formed the first opinions on how to deal with it.

It is then sent to the Eastern Palace Prime Minister's Office, where it is combined with memorials from other directly affiliated offices to form a second opinion on how to deal with it. It is finally submitted to the emperor for review, approved by the eunuchs, and then sent to the Secretariat for review to see if the format is correct.

Finally, the six ministries of the Shangshu Province executed the orders, which were then issued to the provincial, prefectural, road, state and county offices. Although this was a complicated process, it ensured the correctness of the orders to a great extent, and prevented them from changing overnight.

Moreover, many unimportant matters did not need to be escalated to the Prime Minister's Council or even the Emperor. They were directly handled by the prime ministers in the Council of State Affairs and then handed over to the Secretariat and the Chancellery for direct execution.

Now that the Le Dynasty had changed, the Le Dynasty became the Li Dynasty.

For the civil officials, this was just an ordinary change of dynasty in a vassal state. As long as they were obedient to Daxia, they would wait until their country was stabilized and then they would be approved by the envoys.

But for the military officers who had been holding back for five or six years, this was a great opportunity to earn military merit.

As a result, the Grand Marshal's Office, the Governor-General of Guangdong and Guangxi, the Governor-General of Guangdong and Guangxi, the Nanyang Naval Military Governor's Office, the East China Sea Governor's Office and other military units related to South Vietnam all wrote letters to the emperor, requesting to send troops to South Vietnam.

Among them there were even royal princes such as Bai Shao, the King of Chu (son of the old King of Chu, Bai Hai), who was stationed in Guangnan.

This was the result of the State Affairs Council and the Prime Minister's Council blocking the majority of the Privy Council, the Ministry of War, etc.

You have to know that in today's world, there are only a handful of people who can directly bypass the three provinces and six ministries to submit letters to the emperor.

Even Qian Hongchu, the King of Deng who lived in seclusion in Kaifeng, sent someone to write to his old subordinates in Fujian, saying:

"After the Le Dynasty Incident, many defeated soldiers went out to sea as bandits, plundering the coasts of Fujian, Liangzhe, Guangdong and Guangxi, burning, killing and looting."

"Even a defeated army took the opportunity to occupy Liuzhou in Fujian Province of the Xia Dynasty, entrenched themselves there, and recruited desperate criminals from the sea to become a major bandit."

"According to the report from the Donghai Governor's Office, this group of pirates is very mixed, mainly defeated soldiers from the Le Dynasty, but also Japanese, Xia people, Mayi people, Westerners, and even defeated soldiers from the Southern Tang and Southern Han dynasties who retreated to the sea."

Crown Prince Bai Mu, who had already received the news, came to the palace and gave Bai Xi a detailed report.

After hearing this, Bai Xi couldn't help but laugh and said, "It's really a hodgepodge."

After saying that, he couldn't help coughing.

The eunuch Zhao Gou, who was standing by, hurriedly handed over the ginseng soup made from century-old ginseng tributed from Liaodong, and Bai Mu drank it all under his worried gaze.

"Prince, tell me, what should we do?"

Seeing Bai Xi's face turn red after drinking the ginseng soup, Bai Mu felt relieved and said:

"I think the attack on the Le Dynasty was just the people's greed for military merit. If they want to do everything to their liking, the lesson of the former Tang Dynasty is just around the corner."

"As for the pirates entrenched on Liuzhou Island, they are only because the South Sea is newly established and the sea area is vast, so they are too busy to take care of them. We can order the North Sea Marine Division to go south and assist the South Sea Marine Division in suppressing them."

"As the country is just beginning to settle down, we must focus on stabilizing the people's hearts and restoring their livelihood."

Bai Xi nodded after listening, and said with satisfaction: "Since you have such an opinion, I am relieved to hand over the country to you in the future."

"We should not go too far in correcting wrongs. Although there were examples of military men causing chaos in the Tang Dynasty, we must not give priority to civil officials over military officials, or even use civil officials to suppress military officials."

"The importance of civil and military affairs is like the two legs of a country, neither of which can be missing."

"In recent years, the country has stopped its efforts and changed its national policy to focus on improving domestic affairs. In addition, it has attached great importance to civil governance, which has made many civil servants in the country think they are superior to others. This trend must not be allowed to continue."

"When we, the Bai family, govern the country, we always put the country first and treat the people as our children. The scholars are our children, and the warriors are also our children. We must never favor one over the other, otherwise something terrible will happen."

Bai Mu bowed and said, "I will remember this."

In the end, Bai Xi was ready to agree to the request of these warriors. After all, since the founding of Da Xia, these warriors have been strictly supervised, and they must be given some appropriate benefits, otherwise who would work for the Bai family?

April
Daxia appointed Li Minghui, the deputy admiral of the navy, as the general of Dangbo, and mobilized the Beiyang Navy Division and the Nanyang Navy Division, with a total of 10,000 naval troops and 500 warships, to suppress the Liuzhou pirate Wu Dadan and recapture Liuzhou.

At the same time, Zhao Kuangyin, the commander-in-chief of the infantry, was appointed as the 'commander-in-chief of the Annan Road camp'.

Duan Rongxian, the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, and Shangguan Yu, the governor of the Nanyang Navy, were appointed as "deputy governors".

Bai Shao, the King of Chu, was appointed as the 'Du Jian'.

Yuan Kaihua, the Governor-General of Guangdong and Guangxi, was appointed as the 'Capital Transport Commissioner'.

He led 30,000 infantry, cavalry and firearms troops to help pacify the Li State of Nanyue by land and sea.

(End of this chapter)