For now, the population in Guo's hands has recovered to the population of the Yonghe period of the Eastern Han Dynasty.

This is about the number of registered people in the Eastern Han Empire sixty years ago, and again, it does not include the population in Haoqiang's manor that was hidden from public information.

But even so, it means that the wounds of the 20 years of chaos in the late Han Dynasty have been licked by Guo Someone's efforts.

The Wei Empire has basically filled in the holes left by the Han Empire, filled in the roads, and can begin to develop the future of the Wei Empire itself and follow the Wei Empire's own path.

However, the lack of population was an important factor that limited the further development of the Wei Empire.

It takes at least 18 years for a generation to grow up and forge ahead, which is an objective law and cannot be violated, but how many 18 years does Guo have in his life?

According to Guo's own estimates, in order to complete his dream empire, the Wei Empire needs at least 100 million people.

It takes 100 million people to build this skeleton, which is only the skeleton of the future development of the Wei Empire.

Not counting flesh and blood.

If you want to be flesh and blood, open up the south of the Yangtze River, open up Liaodong, build a grassland animal husbandry economic zone, and even open the Maritime Silk Road, you still need more people, several times the population.

In recent years, in order to increase the population of the empire, Guo has successively promulgated a number of policies to encourage childbirth.

Tax reductions, land incentives, cash incentives, in-kind incentives, etc., are all available strategies.

However, fertility is not subject to human will, and the fertility enthusiasm and motivation of the people of the Wei Empire are very strong, and they strive to give birth.

But no matter how hard you try, you can't let your child grow up in a blink of an eye.

When the child can work in the field, it will take more than ten years.

Guo is very anxious, but he can't do anything to pull out the seedlings, once he reveals a certain emotion, he will inevitably be promoted by the officials indefinitely, causing huge chaos.

Guo has never doubted how indecent officials are who want to get more power out of their hands.

So no matter from which point of view, the Wei Empire must recuperate at this time, and only recuperation is the king.

The Yangzhou War was over, the Jingzhou War was over, the Pingzhou War was over, and the Western Regions War was over, the roads were not repaired, and the conditions for continuing the war did not exist.

For Guo, continuing to optimize his rule and consolidating the power of the Wei Empire is what can be done now.

The new war has been planned by Guo someone, but it can't be fought now, so it is necessary to optimize the rule and prepare for future wars.

Storing grain, curing meat, weapons, cloth, and various strategic materials.

Increase the number of war horses, increase the number of trebuchets, increase the exploitation of fierce fire oil and the manufacture of fierce fire oil tanks, increase the manufacture of earth-shaking thunder and the innovation of earth-shaking thunder.

Increase the number and quality of business trips to the Western Regions and the Kushan Empire to earn more money and store more gold and silver.

Strengthen and improve the population statistics so that they can mobilize people to transport grain in the future.

Strengthen the construction of post stations and roads to facilitate the advance of the army in the future.

Strengthen the training of officers in order to facilitate the strengthening of the command system of the future army.

Strengthen the training of soldiers so that the army can be more effective in future large-scale wars.

A temporary recuperation is just a recuperation, and the war will continue.

The system designed by Guo for the Wei Empire was a system designed for all-out war, and once there was a war, this system could react as quickly as possible and burst out with extremely strong mobilization power.

In the future, such a system will continue to be improved and strengthened by Guo someone.

However, as a top-level ruler, Guo's policy starting point is always at the national level, and his policy is not aimed at a specific person, but at the whole country, at least a certain type of people.

This category of people must also include at least hundreds of thousands or millions of people, which is the population quota that national policies need to cover.

Further down, the implementation of some local policies, the implementation of his policies, needs to be implemented by local officials, and it is impossible for Guo to personally govern a village.

Therefore, the existence of grassroots officials is crucial, and the rule of officials is also crucial.

Guo carried out two political actions in the third year of Yande and the fourth year of Yande, but the purpose of these two political actions was not to combat the corruption of the bureaucracy.

The purpose of these two political actions was to seize more power from the scholars, to strengthen their own power, to consolidate their position, to strengthen the centralization of power, and to crack down on nepotism by the way, and to resign some officials under the pretext of cracking down on corrupt officials.

Regardless of whether he is corrupt or not, as long as it threatens the centralization of power by Guo, he will be cracked down.

After these two rounds of blows, the central politics of the Wei Empire were basically mastered by Guo someone.

Following the military power and financial power, the personnel power was also basically controlled by Guo someone, Guo someone's status and political power were also guaranteed, and the political situation of the Wei Empire tended to be stable.

However, this is not an action to crack down on corrupt officials and corrupt officials, and the crackdown on corrupt officials is only incidental, and the main purpose is political struggle, not anti-corruption, and the problem of corruption is still ranked second.

If there are corrupt officials, it must be that there are more local officials, and the central bureaucrats are more concerned about power, they are more conscious, they are more greedy for power, they do not value material things so much, and they have little interest in money.

According to what Guo has learned, the problems exposed at the local level over the years are no less than those of the central government, but they are basically corruption-related things, and they cannot influence the political pattern.

At a time when Guo was swaying the political situation and profiting from it, the issue of corruption was temporarily put aside by Guo and not taken care of it.

But this doesn't mean that Guo doesn't care about these things, sooner or later he has to deal with them, and he can't make some people feel that they can get away with eating him and taking him.

So now that Guo has his hands freed, of course there are accounts.

Future wars need money, lots and lots of money.

Corrupt officials have money in their hands, and the profiteers who cooperate with corrupt officials also have money in their hands, and they have a lot of money that Guo needs someone.

Killing a group of corrupt officials and profiteers can not only make money, but also calm people's anger and earn people's popularity.

To put it bluntly, in the era of feudal imperialism, merchants, that is, pigs raised by the emperor in captivity, should be slaughtered after fattening, and they will not toss another Lu Buwei out.

Guo does not need these merchants beyond his control to develop any so-called capitalism.

Therefore, Guo is ready to rectify the rule of local officials for the future mobilization war, and take advantage of local officials.

At the beginning of October of the fourth year of Yande, Guo learned that Cao Xiu, Zhao Yan, and Ma Yuan had fulfilled his orders.

They used various methods to cause the civil war in Wusun, causing the Wusun people to kill each other, and stirring up the situation in the Western Regions, launching the Seven Kingdoms of Shanbei to crusade against Wusun Xiaokunmi and winning a great victory, successfully establishing the prestige of the Wei Empire in the Western Regions.

This war not only halved Wusun's strength, but also caused the Seven Kingdoms of Shanbei to lose a lot of soldiers, horses, grain and grass.

They will not be able to recover in a short time, and neither will they be able to recover if they give money, because it is people who are lost.

Because of this war, the envoy of Wusun Xiaokunmi stationed in Luoyang was arrested and killed by Guo on the charge of rebellion.

This guy was also unlucky, he was arrested and beheaded when he didn't do anything, or he was tried in front of those envoys in the Imperial Court, and then cut off.

Although he kept begging for mercy and saying that he was not wrong, he was still cut off.

The envoy of the Great Kunmi was very happy about this.

Because from then on, he was the only Wusun envoy, and there was no distinction between big Kunmi and small Kunmi, and Xinli Mi was canonized by Guo Peng as the only Wusun Kunmi and given the seal of King Wusun.

Since then, no one else has competed with him for the right to speak.

He is not happy, who is happy?

He was still applauding Guo for killing Xiao Kunmi's envoy.

Subsequently, the envoys of Wusun and the envoys of the Seven Kingdoms of Shanbei were commended by Guo.

Because they assisted the Wei army in quelling the Xiaokunmi Rebellion, maintaining peace and stability in the Western Regions, and insisting on the unshakable leadership core of the Wei Empire, which is commendable.

Guo generously rewarded them and their country as a sign of encouragement and encouragement to continue to shed their blood for the Wei Empire.

Spending money to buy life is the most cost-effective thing in Guo's opinion.

In this era when productivity has not exploded, human life is definitely worth more than money.

Cao Xiu, Zhao Yan and Ma Yuan joined forces and successfully completed the task assigned by themselves, and cut Wusun's strength in half without much effort, pulling out a nail for the Wei Empire.

Guo was very satisfied with this, and rewarded Cao Xiu, Zhao Yan, and Ma Yuan, allowing them to continue to stabilize the situation in the Western Regions.

Then he began to deal with the problem of local government in the country.

The anti-corruption storm is coming.

At this time, no one knew that the anti-corruption storm was coming.

The beginning of all this originated from the fact that Guo summoned Guo Hong, the imperial historian, and Cheng Qiaorui, the imperial historian, on the sixth day of the tenth month of the fourth year of Yande.

Guo Hong was injured in the previous Cui Yan case and recuperated for a while, but now he has recovered his health and is back in charge of Yushitai.

Qiao Rui has always been very good and delicious, because of Guo Peng's deliberate protection in the previous turmoil, he only suffered a slight impact, and it is not worth mentioning with other damaged people.

Guo Peng summoned Qiao Rui and Guo Hong, called them to the study of the Qinzheng Palace, and explained his requirements to them in private.

"In the first year of Yande, I have never had time to take care of the local officials, I really want to solve some things and punish corrupt officials in some places, but I don't have time, I don't have energy, and you Yushitai is not free.

But now it's okay, the battle that should be fought is over, and the things that should be done are almost done, so I have some time to do it, and I should handle the things that I didn't have time to handle before, and the Yushitai should also move, don't always hang around in Luoyang City. ”

Guo Peng said this, Guo Hong and Qiao Rui didn't understand.

"Your Majesty means ......"

"What I mean is to ask you to send people to the localities, to learn from the Ministry of Officials, to learn from the Ministry of Finance, how they organize working groups to work in the localities, and your task is to catch and punish corrupt officials, corrupt officials, not only the central government.

There are more local officials, there are more corrupt officials, and your duties must be carried out not only at the central level, but also at the local level. ”

With a wave of his hand, Guo asked Yushitai to organize an action team to travel from the central to the local level through the mountains and rivers of the Wei Empire to find out every corrupt official hidden in the ranks of officials.

The people have been suffering from corrupt officials for a long time, and some people can be found out and killed, while others cannot.

The emperor has not moved the places for four years, and the problems in some places are already quite serious.

Guo promoted Li Shu to be the village head, township head and county official, and also used the Hanmen officials to be the village head, township head and county official, their political tendencies were the same as Guo someone's, and their butts also sat on Guo someone's side, and they were Guo's best assistant to fight against the scholars.

However, they can also be corrupt.

This is caused by human nature, and it can't be solved, and the only way to deal with it is to keep moving.

Officialdom is like a water tank, full of water, which looks crystal clear, but if you put it there and let the water become stagnant water, it will soon become a paradise for mosquitoes.

It looks crystal clear, but in fact it is full of dirt and dirt, and it is full of mosquitoes, and when summer comes, the water tank is full of mosquitoes, and the water cannot be used.

If you want to keep the water tank free of mosquitoes, you must constantly use the water in the tank, and then pick clean water and put it in.

Running water does not rot.

The water tank can't be renewed by itself, so Guo has to be the big hand that stirs the water tank.

It's not enough to expect the place to tidy up on its own, just like expecting the water tank to change the water in its stomach by itself.

Only by exerting external force, with the control of Guo someone, the water tank can be tidied up, and the mosquito paradise that hides dirt and dirt can be turned into a sweet spring that can nourish the people of the world.