County school, county school, plus seven universities directly under the court, constitute today's three-level government school system, now the total number of students enrolled in the government school has reached 150,000, compared with the highest number of students in the Kaihuang period has also doubled, the number of teachers has reached more than 20,000, it is four or five times as much as before, the development of government school will inevitably lead to the development of private school, in order to be admitted to the government school, all kinds of private schools are also flourishing, the scale has been several times that of the official school, the official school and private school combined, the number of students is expected to reach as many as one million.

This number seems huge, however, it is less than two percent of the country's population, which is also a helpless thing, to popularize education at this time is just an unrealistic dream, these million students, more than eighty percent of them are from poor families, compared to the previous knowledge monopoly in the hands of the family is much better, basically meet Yang Yong's expectations.

Yang Yong should be grateful for this good time, due to the division of the Northern and Southern Dynasties for hundreds of years, Confucianism is at a low ebb, and Yang Jian almost disbanded the official school during the Renshou period, and now the official school is all supported by the new emperor, almost a blank piece of paper, you can let the emperor smear it, otherwise he will change most of the content of the official school, it will cause a big storm, the Song and Ming dynasties, in the face of the backbone of the scholar to maintain the holy teacher, even the emperor has to retreat.

Speaking from the heart, Confucianism has done a good job in maintaining unity, otherwise the south would not have been swept down by the Sui army after hundreds of years of division, Confucianism is also very useful in cultivating personal cultivation, official morality, and standardizing social order, of course, Confucianism also maintains the monarchy, Yang Yong will naturally not be stupid to cut off his own foundation, so in the official school, various Confucian classics also occupy an important position.

For the poor students in the current government school, it is even more difficult to enter the official system after completing their studies. Their dream is only to be a teacher, a clerk, or a pen, to become a staff and military adviser and other talents, for their children and grandchildren to win a future, and even some people are willing to go to the merchant family to be a shopkeeper, only the luckiest people will be appreciated by some families and be recommended to the court as officials.

Yang Yong has always been cautious about when the imperial examination will be implemented. Even in front of cronies like Lu Mulin, he didn't show his mouth, and he also made several temptations, and the two courses of Buddhism and Taoism needed to pass the exam before the ferry disc could be issued. Using the exam to confirm whether the students are qualified to enter the official school, Yang Yong can be said to have taken great pains.

Both of these things are now done well, most people have accepted the form of examinations, and the implementation of the imperial examination has become more and more mature, and the imperial examination system is equivalent to a healthy and powerful way of being an official in front of all scholars, and there is no doubt that they will definitely raise their hands to support it. Plus with the guarantee of imperial power. No matter how much the family opposes it, it can't make much waves.

The construction of the Yongji Canal went more smoothly than expected, and the court directly converted prisoners, cattle, sheep, horses, and other livestock into war trophies, so that the soldiers of the prefecture who were bent on making a fortune burst out with 200 percent of their combat power, and truly achieved the point where they were not afraid of bloodshed, sacrifice, defeat, or drag. After Jieli attacked the advance of the Sui army to no avail, he originally decided to retreat. Hoping that the Sui army would retreat after the logistics were poor, and then he could take revenge on the Central Plains after training 50,000 troops, but he didn't expect that the Sui army that came in was worse than what they did when they entered the Central Plains to rob, population, livestock, gold and silver...... Like the locust frontier, all useful supplies are looted.

And due to the entry of large armies. Nature cuts off all trade in the steppes. In addition to cattle and sheep, Jieli soon discovered that his troops were short of salt. Lack of tea, lack of cotton, lack of iron...... In short, all the necessities of life were in short supply, almost forcing Jieli to a desperate situation, Jieli couldn't bear it, so he had to take 50,000 cangs to promote the military and local troops to fight.

In this war, because it was the Turks who took the initiative, the Sui army did not completely gather all its strength, the Sui army on the battlefield 60,000 against the Turks 50,000, it can be said that they were on par, but in terms of the quality of the soldiers, the Turks completely fell into the disadvantage, the Turks dismounted for the people, and the horses were for the army, but compared to the ordinary people of the Central Plains, the government soldiers of the Sui army were selected local elite soldiers, and there were at least three months of unified training every year, and the government soldiers who entered the grassland were after many years of conquest and rich combat experience.

The war materials of the two sides cannot be compared, except for the horses, most of the Turks only have leather armor on their bodies, the average number of arrows is less than 10, and the weapons are even more varied, and some even just tie a sharpened iron bar in front of the wooden stick as their main weapon.

On the other hand, the Sui army had an endless supply of arrows, the infantry was wrapped in iron armor, and the cavalry was also covered with a layer of soft armor, such as swords, horse lances, spears, and short swords...... Almost armed to the teeth, in the face of the fierce Sui soldiers, these herdsmen who have not been trained for much time have no advantage at all, and soon after the two sides engaged, the Turkic cavalry collapsed under the endless crossbow arrows of the Sui army, and the 50,000 Turkic army suffered more than 10,000 casualties, and the remaining more than 30,000 people were taken prisoner, and Jieli escaped with thousands of people alone.

In the past three years, the Eastern Turks have perished as a country, more than 300,000 Turks have been captured by the Sui army, and as many as six or seven million cattle, sheep and other livestock and nearly one million horses have been snatched back from the steppe.

The court paid more than 30 million yuan for these spoils, and the soldiers from the battlefield came down from the battlefield, and the minimum reward reached more than 100 yuan, and even the Praetorian Guards were very jealous of the treatment of these soldiers, and they asked the emperor to fight many times, and they had no choice but to send two Janissaries to participate in the war when Yang Yong was in the fourth year of the great cause, so that they could drink a mouthful of soup.

However, the court did not suffer a loss, with these more than 300,000 slaves, the Yongji Canal was completed at the end of last year, the court only spent more than 200 stone grain, if there were no Turkic slaves, the cost of the Yongji Canal alone would be as high as 30 million guan, the price of using slaves only cost more than 3 million guan, and cattle, sheep, horses and other livestock, the court almost bought at half price to the merchants who came madly, except for the reward, the court still had a profit, the household actually did not spend at all, and finally had a surplus of millions of guan.

What's more, the influx of a large number of cattle and sheep has led to a great reduction in the price of these livestock, and many farmers who had not cultivated cattle have benefited greatly, and have bought cultivated cattle or horses at very low prices.

The benefits of foreign conquest are so great, Yang Yong is a little puzzled why Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty will exhaust the people of the whole country by attacking the Xiongnu for thousands of miles, and perhaps it can be concluded from the fact that Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty set aside a large area of land to raise the millions of livestock that the soldiers had worked so hard to bring, and Ning Yuan let them slowly die of illness and old age rather than give them to ordinary people at a low price or for free.

It can be said that the Yongji Canal was completely paved by the blood and sweat of the Eastern Turks, and after the Yongji Canal was opened to navigation, more than 300,000 Turks, of whom 60,000 or 70,000 Turks died on the construction site of the river, and the death ratio reached more than 20 percent, and more than 100 corpses would be buried on the construction site of the river every day.

This proportion is not much compared to the laborers who died in the construction of large-scale projects in previous dynasties, Qin Shi Huang built the Great Wall and requisitioned nine out of ten servants, Emperor Yang of Sui repaired the Tongji Canal is also ten dead three or four, and only two percent of the Turkic captives died in the repair of the Yongji Canal, which can be said to be very rare.

Providing sufficient food for the Turks is the reason why eighty percent of the Turks survived, and the two percent of the prisoners who died were mostly the old, weak, sick and sick children of the Eastern Turks, who could not stand the cruel labor of digging canals, but the daily non-stop labor and sufficient food made the surviving captives much stronger. Giving the captives enough food does not necessarily mean how kind the Sui army is, a prisoner is worth ten guan, a stone of grain is worth only about 100 yuan, and a captive has four to five stone of grain a year is enough, this middle account, Yu Wenkai, who is responsible for building the canal, naturally calculates clearly, the Yongji Canal has just been repaired, and the remaining more than 200,000 Turkic prisoners immediately began the construction of the Tongji Canal connecting the south of the Yangtze River.

After the completion of the Yongji Canal, the waterway from Luoyang to Zhuojun was completely opened, which greatly enhanced the court's ability to mobilize the north, in other words, the time was ripe for the court to use force against Goguryeo.

Learning the lessons of Yang Guang's three failed expeditions to Goguryeo in history, although Yang Yong did not plan to attack Goguryeo by land, the role of Yongji Canal has not been reduced at all, if you want to launch an attack on Goguryeo, Zhuojun will become a key area for the gathering of soldiers and materials, and the risk of sea transportation is still too great at present, and Yongji Canal will undoubtedly bear most of the materials and part of the transportation of troops.

The conquest of Goguryeo was not for the sake of dirt in later generations, Yang Guang said, just for the sake of face, Goguryeo has been established for hundreds of years, from a small tribe to a large country with millions of people, has always been extremely aggressive to the surrounding areas, taking advantage of the extreme civil strife in the Central Plains, but also the Han Dynasty set up in Liaodong four counties completely occupied.

After the founding of the Great Sui Dynasty, Goguryeo first overhauled the city wall, stockpiled grain to strictly guard against the Great Sui, and hooked up with Gao Baoning, lending troops to Gao Baoning to invade the Sui land, after Gao Baoning was destroyed, Goguryeo did not give up, and sent troops to invade the west of the Liao River many times, and entered the territory of the Great Sui to burn, kill and loot the border people.

A region is destined to have only one big country, not to mention that Goguryeo is so unruly, the Great Sui and Goguryeo are destined to have a war, although the war of Goguryeo dragged the Great Sui to the top, the successor Tang still chose to destroy Goguryeo, isn't it for nothing.

In March of the fifth year of the Great Cause, Yang Yong began to issue a mobilization order, preparing to march in person, intending to dispatch an army of 300,000 on land and water to crusade against Goguryeo.