Thief Emperor

Chapter 426 Wait for the opportunity to tire out!
The treatment given by Li Yun would be completely unreasonable if it were in the early years of the founding of the Great Zhou Dynasty, because it was too generous.

After all, at that time, one guan of money could almost buy ten shi of rice.

In other words, the treatment that Li Yun offered to generals and captains was already close to the top salary of the first rank in the imperial court in the early years of the Great Zhou Dynasty.

But then was the past, and now is the present.

Nowadays, one string of money can buy a lot of grain and rice in Jiangdong, but if it is in the Central Plains or other places, you may not be able to buy even a stone of rice.

Money prices plummeted.

Since Jiangdong had no way to issue new currency, it could only barely maintain the prices. If it was not careful, Jiangdong's food would be bought up by money from outside.

Therefore, Du Qian has now issued a restriction order, strictly prohibiting the sale of grain without official permission.

Even so, this treatment is already quite generous.

Zhou Liang, a soldier, was the first to stand up and oppose it.

However, Li Yun only put forward his own ideas and then discussed them together, instead of making a final decision with one slap.

Du Qian said this, then looked at Li Yun and said softly: "Envoy, I think what General Zhou said is right. In Jiangdong, whether it is a military general or a civil official, we should all give money. There is no need to give out rice as salary."

"As for the specific treatment, there is no need to rush to decide now. We will temporarily follow Zhou Lu. During this period, I will let the third brother go around and run around to draw up a set of rules and give it to the envoy to decide."

Li Yun then remembered that there was another person named Du He who was in charge of money in Jiangdong.

After thinking for a while, he nodded and agreed with Du Qian's opinion. After rubbing his temple, he said, "I am still a little impatient. I always want to arrange everything in one go."

"The specific treatment at all levels will be decided by the third brother of the Du family after he conducts research. Now let's talk about the inspection."

Li Yun became serious and said, "My idea is to separate civil and military affairs. For the civil officials, we should set up an Inspectorate."

"Xu Ang will be in charge for the time being."

Du Qian put down his teacup and said with a smile, "He is just right for this, but you must remind him not to be too strict, otherwise many things will not be able to proceed."

The so-called Inspectorate is actually the Censorate of the Great Zhou Dynasty. This institution has existed in all dynasties.

However, Li Yun is still a minister of the Great Zhou, so it is not appropriate to call it the Censorate directly. So he simply borrowed the name of the government office of the Ming Dynasty in another world and directly applied it to Jiangdong.

After all, no one in this world knows what level of government office this Inspectorate is, and it is just right to use it in Jiangdong.

"As for the military."

Li Yun looked at Zhou Liang, touched his chin and said, "I have already written the new military rules and regulations, and Uncle San has also read them. Who do you think is suitable to be responsible for the inspection?"

Zhou Liang thought for a moment and replied, "Me...or Li Zheng."

"Thin... cough..."

Li Yun subconsciously wanted to call out the nickname, but at this time, it was actually no longer appropriate to call out Li Zheng's nickname.

After all, Li Zheng is now in charge of a group of troops and is capable of handling matters on his own. He also needs to slowly build up some authority.

"Li Zheng and Third Uncle each led their own troops..."

Li Zheng is now in the south, opening up the territory south of the Jiangnan East Road, while Zhou Liang is in charge of all the Jiangdong soldiers near Jinling. Both of them are already generals.

It’s hard to extricate yourself from this for the time being.

Zhou Liang thought for a moment and whispered, "If you trust me, then the inspection will start from the Jinling Army. I can lead the troops while setting up the inspection department."

"When you find a replacement for me, I will quit my post and focus on the inspection."

Li Yun thought about it and nodded in agreement with Zhou Liang's opinion.

At this point, it seems like this is the only thing we have to do.

"I will transfer Deng Yang to work under Uncle San to give him some experience. As for the Inspection Department, my initial idea is to select five out of every hundred soldiers."

"Although they live with the army, they are not under the management of the army. Each army has an inspection department, and above the inspection department, there is an inspection department, which oversees the inspection departments of each army."

"The chief officer of the Inspection Department is called the Inspection Officer."

"It belongs directly to me, and is not controlled by anyone else."

At this point, Li Yun bowed his head and said, "In this way, we will have both civil and military skills. As long as we do it well, there won't be any major discipline problems for at least ten years."

Although the words Li Yun used, such as "Inspection Department" and "Discipline Issues", seemed a bit strange in this era, they were easy to understand. Both Du Qian and Zhou Liang understood his ideas easily.

Moreover, the two levels from ministry to department were not created by Li Yun. In fact, the six ministries have always been divided at this level. Departments were set up under the six ministries, but the chief officer at the ministry level was called Shangshu, and the chief officer at the department level was called Langzhong.

So the three of them started a heated discussion around the idea proposed by Li Yun.

The formation of a system cannot be completely perfected by one person. It must require discussions among many people and be combined with the practice of many people before it can be tested bit by bit.

Of course, the core idea must be controlled by Li Yun, the backbone. In this way, in Li Garden, the three of them discussed from morning to late afternoon, and even had their meals in Li Garden.

Finally, after the general outline was formed, Zhou Liang was the first to stand up, bowed his head and saluted, saying: "Sir, I will go to the army and start to set up the Jinling Army's Inspection Department."

"I will come to see you again when there are some results."

Li Yun and Du Qian also stood up. Li clasped his fists towards Zhou Liang and said with a smile, "Thank you for your hard work, Third Uncle."

Du Qian bowed and said, "Thank you for your hard work, General Zhou."

Zhou Liang said he didn't dare, stepped out, and turned away.

Li Yun looked at his back and said with emotion: "My Third Uncle is really...he does what he says."

There were no outsiders around at this time. Du Qian stood next to Li Yun and asked curiously, "Erlang, I'm curious. You and General Zhou clearly have different surnames. Why do you call him Third Uncle?"

Li Yun thought for a moment and replied, "Brother Shouyi, just think of him as my father and he are sworn brothers."

The ranking in the village is not easy to explain. Besides, Li Yun is still in the start-up stage. It would be bad if he turned out to be a bandit and scared away his partner Du Qian.

The two sat down again. Li Yun lowered his head to drink tea and said with a smile: "Brother Shouyi, do you know that I have an organization under my command that is responsible for gathering intelligence, called Jiusi."

"Originally, I wanted to let Jiusi take on the job of inspector, but then I thought about it and decided not to. They are meddling too much and it will be hard to deal with them in the future."

"Nine Division..."

Du Qian pondered the name for a moment, then shook his head and said, "I know Erlang has some people responsible for gathering intelligence, but I didn't know they were called Jiusi."

"Which nine departments?"

Li Yun laughed: "Just call me Jiusi."

"When the benefited brothers heard this, they all had this reaction. I guess outsiders are even more confused. They don't understand what this name means either."

At this point, Li Yun thought for a moment and continued, "When we grow bigger, the Nine Divisions may really evolve into nine divisions."

Du Qian followed with a smile and said, "If it gets bigger, it can be renamed the Imperial City Division."

Mr. Li shook his head: "It will not have the same name as Wu Zhou, and it will still be called Jiusi in the future."

Du Qian nodded first, then said, "Speaking of which, there is another piece of news coming from the imperial court recently."

"Prime Minister Cui Yuan, along with Pei Huang, went to meet with the three military governors. I'm not sure what they talked about, but what we do know is..."

“Nothing was agreed upon.”

"Those three are unwilling to leave Guanzhong."

Li Yun had just heard this news. He thought about it and said thoughtfully, "If it were me, I wouldn't want to leave just like that. The price those three paid for occupying Guanzhong was not small."

The Shuofang Army fought the rebels for two years and suffered over 10,000 casualties, needless to say.

It was also a hard journey for the Fanyang army to travel thousands of miles to Guanzhong.

Even the Hedong Army had fought a fierce battle with the rebels in Guanzhong, and the three Jiedushi had all paid a price.

It can be inferred that they must get enough benefits before they are willing to give up.

Li Yun poured Du Qian a cup of tea and asked, "If the three of them don't want to leave, do the other vassal states have any objections?"

"There is nothing we can do about it. The cost of trying to seize Guanzhong from the three of them at this time is too high."

"Why do we want to seize Guanzhong?"

Li Yun smiled and said, "Isn't the emperor still outside Guanzhong now?"

"If I were a nearby military governor, I would run straight to the emperor, intercept him, and announce to the public that those three people were traitors occupying Guanzhong, and call on the people of the world to attack them together."

Du Qian was stunned and forgot to drink his tea. He stared at Li Yun blankly for a long time before muttering, "It seems to make some sense, but the court may not give in so easily. There are so many imperial guards around His Majesty."

"Your Majesty may not be willing to return to Guanzhong and become a clay Buddha."

"Maybe he just needs an excuse not to return to Guanzhong."

At this point, Li Yun waved his hand and said, "Never mind, never mind. Let them make trouble. We just need to do a good job in Jiangdong and train our soldiers well."

"Wait until they have done all the hard work."

Mr. Li chuckled.

"Let's go give them another big surprise."

(End of this chapter)