"Big brother, Mr. Cen, they are here, over there in the Changming Palace, let's go over." Li Xuanqing was busy early in the morning, and it wasn't until Qiaoxi came over that he found that it was almost noon.

"It just so happens that I've sorted out these materials in the past two days, and you can help me see when the time comes." Li Xuanqing handed a large stack of materials full of characters in his hand to Qiaoxi, and the two walked as they walked.

Qiaoxi smiled curiously: "Big brother, have you been busy for three days, are you busy with these?" Let me take a look, Millennium Family? It can't be the material of those big families, right? ”

The two walked towards the Changming Palace, and Qiao Xi frowned while watching: "The Guanlongmen valve is basically almost extinct, and in fact, after the entry of the Shatuo people in Taiyuan Mansion, there is no big family anymore. Similar to Brother Yuwen, they are actually no longer the Yuwen family they were back then. The focus is still on the Jiangnan clan who crossed south after the Yongjia year, and the big family who moved to Jiangnan after the Anshi Rebellion. They are numerous and widely distributed, and they are what we need to focus on. ”

"Yes, many of these families have been passed down from ancient times to thousands of years, and their influence is too great." Li Xuanqing nodded and said: "I checked the classics here in Luoyang and the reports sent back by Xuanyingwei over the years, but these estimates are still incomplete, and there are still many giant crocodiles that we don't know about have not surfaced." ”

"Your Majesty, Your Majesty." The two said as they walked and said that they would soon arrive at the Changming Palace. Changming Hall is the main body of the Luoyang Imperial Palace in the eastern capital, and it is also the main office of the emperor in Luoyang in the Tang Dynasty. At this time, Cen Tianshi and Xu Tianxiang were already waiting for Li Xuanqing.

However, Li Xuanqing did not go to the main hall, but took Cen Tianshi and others to the East Warm Pavilion of the side hall, and after a few people sat down, Qiaoxi instructed the palace maid outside the door to make tea, and a few people circulated the materials sorted out by Li Xuanqing.

"What does the emperor mean to suppress these thousand-year-old families?" Cen Tianshi handed the materials in his hand to Xu Tianxiang and asked: "It's just that they have been entrenched in the south of the Yangtze River for hundreds of years, and the forces of all parties are intertwined, and it is too difficult to eradicate them. ”

"I don't think so. It is estimated that the loss is only those wealthy forces. It's just that what Mr. Cen said is that their forces are intertwined and colluded up and down. Fortunately, we started in the north, and the main high-level backgrounds are relatively innocent, otherwise we probably wouldn't be able to deal with it. Xu Tianxiang shook his head, but he also smiled bitterly.

"Sir, second brother. In fact, the clans in Jiangnan were mainly based on scribes in politics, and they obtained official positions to form a group. This should also be the main source of the Jiangnan scribe group in the early and middle Tang Dynasty, right? Qiaoxi interjected at this time: "It's just that after we came to power, we eliminated the previous imperial examination in one fell swoop, and replaced it with a civil service system, from the teaching materials to the concept of governance, which is different from this era, which is equivalent to completely overthrowing the concept of Confucianism and excellence for thousands of years, so that these scribe groups have no advantage." Moreover, with the gradual improvement of the academic qualification system implemented by the Ministry of Education and the comprehensive development of the education system, the Jiangnan Scribe Group is facing a huge fault line politically, and the implementation of the compulsory education system in the northern regions year by year is equivalent to breaking the idea of knowledge and cultural monopoly. ”

"In order to realize universal values and allow the people at the bottom to benefit from social development, so as to get a relatively fair path to promotion, this monopoly must be completely broken. We are in troubled times, and one of the advantages of troubled times is that all the rules are established through military power, and our ideas and values are forcibly implemented by violent means. Li Xuanqing took Qiaoxi's words and said: "Therefore, the reform of Jiangnan must be strengthened, and this prosperous area must be included in the orthodoxy of the empire." ”

Cen Tianshi didn't have much opinion on this, but he was a little hesitant about the violent methods Li Xuanqing said, so he muttered in a deep voice: "Does the emperor mean that he intends to manage the military and use the army to implement reforms?" ”

Li Xuanqing nodded and said, "Yes, it's the military management, and I have already found the candidates." Li Jipeng, who retired from Xuanyingwei, was transferred to the local government, and was appointed deputy minister of the security department and concurrently served as the procurator of the Southeast Military Administrative Region to carry out the reform task, and the cabinet selected personnel to assist. After the end of military management, the southeastern region will be divided into provinces and rebuilt. ”

As soon as Cen Tianshi heard Li Jipeng's name, he immediately understood what was going on, and felt that Li Xuanqing wanted Li Jipeng to take out the set in Sichuan, and immediately smiled bitterly: "Your Majesty, in this way, these literati will inevitably criticize our nascent empire." ”

"It doesn't matter, anyway, the army is violent, and when the time comes, Mr.'s cabinet will take over with more gentle means, and people's hearts will be calmed. Besides, as soon as the land reform is over, we will be able to completely win the support of the lower classes, and the literati clique will not be a problem. Xu Tianxiang doesn't care, he doesn't have a little awe for these thousand-year-old families.

"In this way, how about I let Yang Qiu go to Jinling to be responsible for cooperating with Li Jipeng and assisting him in completing various tasks?" Cen Tianshi nodded with a deep sigh and said: "In fact, the Jiangnan Scribe Group has a long history, as early as the early years of this dynasty, it has been called the three major forces together with the Guanlongmen Valve and the Shandong Hanmen Group. It's just that during the period from Wu Zhou to Xuanzong, due to the vigorous implementation of the imperial examination and the uninterrupted policy suppression, the first two basically disappeared, but the scribe group survived, and its power and scope also continued to grow, and the Central Plains was even covered by this power that relied on the imperial examination during the Tianbao period. It was only after the Anshi Rebellion that the feudal towns arose, and the scribes lost their power during the war, so they declined, but in the Jiangnan area, even the feudal towns and envoys needed to rely on these literati to govern their territories. ”

"Our first step is to do a good job in land reform, their economic foundation, only by depriving the families of their land will they be forced to fundamentally break away from the exploiting class, and also enable other people to stand on the same level as these families materially." Li Xuanqing has also learned a lot about this history in the past few days, so he couldn't help but sigh.

"Big brother, there is actually a supplementary way." Qiaoxi thought for a while and said: "After the land reform, let Brother Xu and his five wealthy businessmen join forces to open up the Jiangnan market, on the one hand, to suppress the monopoly of these families in industry and commerce, and on the other hand, to give them a lead, to see how our businessmen do business, how to deal with political and business relations, and to give them a chance to integrate into the mainstream of society." ”

"Your Majesty, I think this method is good. After all, these big families can't be beaten to death with a stick, and politically we can't make concessions, we must make sure that the original intention of the empire cannot be changed, but economically we still have to find a way to integrate them. This is also in line with the eclectic, inclusive and open characteristics of the empire. Cen Tianshi nodded at Qiaoxi's method.

"That's fine. You let Yang Qiu discuss with Li Jipeng when the time comes. Li Xuanqing nodded. In fact, in the eyes of him and Qiaoxi, the situation in Jiangnan is that the economic monopoly of the big families and the control of the political elite group, in order to reverse the economic situation, it is necessary to abolish the foundation of its rule economically, and then force it to participate in the emerging industrial and commercial development, so as to be completely smelted by the social melting pot. Qiaoxi's suggestion is actually the latter step.

"That's it, let Yang Qiu come to Luoyang, there are some things I have to explain to him personally, it just so happens that Li Jipeng's side will also go back to Luoyang after dealing with Xuan Yingwei's affairs, let them meet in Luoyang." Li Xuanqing thought about it and planned to tell him personally, this matter involves the entire Jiangnan region, which is almost half of the current imperial territory, so he can't be cautious.

Cen Tianshi nodded, he also knew Li Xuanqing's worries, and was about to get up to say goodbye, and the guards outside the door hurriedly walked in and handed over a piece of information.

"Your Majesty, the northern line has started." Xu Tianxiang took it and glanced at it and said, "Chen Fan's side plans to start launching the Northern Front campaign at the end of May. ”

Li Xuanqing clapped his hands when he heard this, and said with a smile: "Okay, there is just a place to dilute the population of Jiangnan." Go and tell Yang Yi that all the prisoners of the Jiangnan Campaign, along with their families, will all move to the north and reclaim the border. The Cabinet and the Ministry of Logistics will build more than 20 large state farms in the northeast. ”

"The eldest brother might as well put the scattered parts of these big families in the northeast, where the climate is severe and it is estimated that military management will be required for a long time, so that the population layout can be completed in less than ten years, and the reality of small land and dense population in the south of the Yangtze River will be alleviated." Qiaoxi's words suddenly reminded Li Xuanqing of the famous "going to the mountains and going to the countryside" movement in later generations, and it can be said that this is also a good opportunity to change the social class.

However, Qiaoxi's method made Cen Tianshi frown for a while, he could naturally feel the benefits that Qiaoxi's method could bring in the short term, but this kind of migratory population was tantamount to distributing these big families, and entering the military administration area after dispersion and chaos was equivalent to directly wiping out all the political future of these people. Military administrative regions and local administrative regions are not the same, many policies and regulations do not need to be perfected, and government affairs are completely replaced by military law, it is conceivable that the Northeast will face a situation of mixed multi-ethnic living in the future, and this part of the Han people who migrated to Li Xuanqing will unconsciously bear the historical burden of Sinicizing other ethnic minorities, which makes Cen Tianshi faintly a little unbearable.

The change in Cen Tianshi's face naturally couldn't escape the eyes of the other three, and Qiaoxi saw Li Xuanqing nodding and immediately smiled: "Sir, don't regard the Northeast as a barren land, it is a veritable treasure land, if it is managed well, it will not be worse than Jiangnan, and my eldest brother and I promise that it will definitely be the core area of the empire's heavy industry in the future, so the cabinet may as well lay out in advance when the time comes." My shipyard has already gone to Liaodong to investigate, if the estimate is good, I will build a super-large shipyard, and the eldest brother has also decided to find a way to extend Tianjin's railway to Liaodong. ”

"Treasure land?" Cen Tianshi glanced at Li Xuanqing, and when he saw that he also nodded, he suddenly became interested, and even said with a smile that he couldn't bear to look at before: "I still have some savings, if I don't look back, I will count it as a share, how about I also invest in shipyards?" In the future, when you retire, you can also save some money for your family. ”

"Forget it, a few of us are okay for the time being, the southern line is stared at by Tiancheng, and when Yang Qiu and them are explained, let's go north together and go to see on the spot." When the time comes, Chen Fan will fight in the front, and let's investigate how it will be in the back. Li Xuanqing said with a smile.

Li Xuanqing's words made Xu Tianxiang and Cen Tianshi laugh, Xu Tianxiang glanced at Qiaoxi and smiled: "Is the journey too bumpy for my sister-in-law to take Xiao Tianqi, do you want to find you a companion?" ”

Li Xuanqing glanced at him before he could finish speaking, waved his hand and said, "Okay, I don't know your mind yet?" Mr. will ask Yang Qiu to bring Fu Yao to Luoyang as well, so that you will not be lonely. ”

"He, he wants to save face and suffer from it, the last time I went to propose marriage to him, Yang Qiu agreed to it, this guy regretted it halfway, saying that he wanted to solve it himself. The results are still grinding down to this day. I don't think I'll go and help Tiancheng raise his relatives, I think Tiancheng is also very good, mature and stable. Cen Tianshi's words made Xu Tianxiang's head full of black lines, and he almost pinched the prime minister in front of Li Xuanqing and his wife.

After a few people laughed for a while, Cen Tianshi stood up and said goodbye, ready to go to Xu Ning to study the transportation matters between Henan and the Central Plains, and arrange for the two places to coordinate and prepare to rebuild the canal and Shandong together to continue the standard of the Youzhou region, by the way, and say hello to the Heguan area, with the gradual recovery of the imperial territory, the Heguan tax also needs to be adjusted accordingly, and these things are just solved together. It is also necessary to take the time to see how the provinces are implementing money and taxation.

Xu Tianxiang and Li Xuanqing stayed in the Luoyang Palace to deal with the war on the northern and southern fronts. Wan Yi of the base camp also received an order to come to Luoyang to take charge, and the base camp of the General Staff was temporarily transferred from Chang'an to Luoyang. However, compared with the gradual opening of the southern line, Chen Fan's preparation time for the northern line is much longer, some time ago the southern line materials were tight, and all the money and grain materials originally used for the northern line were transferred south through the canal, and the Changluo Railway was gradually transferred from Luoyang after the opening of the railway, and the misappropriated materials were gradually recovered.

It can be said that the logistics department and the four transportation companies that are gradually growing in this war are the key. Among them, Xu Xingxia's Canal Shipping Company and Murong Family's Northern Transportation Company stood out among many small companies by using the massive transportation tasks of the logistics department, and quickly grew into a large-scale professional transportation company across regions.

"Big brother, Brother Zhang said that the shipyard is about to prepare a new warship, which is estimated to have a displacement of more than 1,000 tons according to the size, let's go and see it in advance." Qiaoxi walked into the Changming Hall and shook the newspaper in his hand.

"A thousand tons? It seems that Xu Xingxia's trip to Fusang is hopeful. Li Xuanqing nodded and said with a smile: "Tianxiang, you go and ask the navy if there are any warships or ships, and we will go north in a few days." ”

"A thousand tons?" Xu Tianxiang was also interested, and said with a smile: "I want to go and see such a big ship." Speaking of which, I, the chief of staff, have never seen a warship, and it's a bit embarrassing to say it, and I still command Guo Chongtao every day, otherwise this guy should laugh at me. ”