The grand wedding in Chang'an City was completed lively, and the Tang Empire gradually got on the right track from the festive atmosphere, and various departments went to work one after another to start new work. On the sixteenth day of the first month of the second year of the Apocalypse, the Imperial Conference was held as scheduled, and according to the established practice, all the attention of all circles of the empire was concentrated on Chang'an, on the Changqing Palace, and on the Imperial Conference that was being held.

"Your Majesty, the cabinet is preparing to concentrate on the development of several key economic centers demarcated by the emperor this year, and drive the development of the surrounding areas with the radiation of the economic center, and the Ministry of Communications plans to spend five years to focus on dredging the water and land transportation of several major economic centers, build more than three inter-provincial railway lines, and extend the railway terminal station centered on Taiyuan to Fengzhou, so that the materials of Fengzhou and even the grassland can quickly go south and integrate into the tide of imperial development." At the beginning of the meeting, Cen Tianshi smiled with interest: "This is one of the focuses of this year's work." ”

"Okay, let's start the meeting, this year is a year of inheriting the past and opening up the future, if this year's affairs are done, then our future affairs will be easy to do, if it is not done well, the general trend of the empire's just unification will be delayed, and the rest and recuperation of the people everywhere will also be delayed." Li Xuanqing waved his hand and said, "The three of you should start one by one." Since Mr. Cen has already spoken, let's let him continue. ”

The cabinet's plan for this year should still be very full, and after Cen Tianshi introduced the overall layout, the ministers of various ministries also began to stand up and speak, according to the specific plans of supplementing the ministries according to what Cen Tianshi said. The household registration issue led by the Ministry of Civil Affairs involves the major matter of ethnic integration, as the biggest thing in the second year of the Apocalypse, it has been unanimously supported by the military, political and legal parties, and the plan drawn up by the Deputy Prime Minister Tuoba Siji and Yang Qiu even decided to complete the issue of national integration in the second year of the Apocalypse, proposing that most of the special customs of the minority tribes in the empire be abolished from this year, only a few special symbols will be retained, and all other integrations will enter the mainstream, and the popularization of Tang Yan will be required. In the future, the military and political parties must use the Tang dialect for communication in their work schedules, and all educational units under the Ministry of Education must also teach in accordance with the Tang dialect.

The teacher said that Tuoba Si's ideas were very close to those of later generations, and even more radical in some aspects, and he was a party member himself, so after he and Yang Qiu finished speaking, Xu Tianxiang even stabbed him, thinking that this guy would be killed by his own people if he didn't do well in addition to the gate.

"You may think that my suggestion is too impatient, but as a party member, I still have to say that the Tang Empire has brought unprecedented new changes in all aspects, as a party member, I feel the wealth and changes brought by my people in the process of the rise of the empire, and I want to promote them to better integrate into the empire and become a solid element in maintaining the unity and development of the empire." Tuoba Si said with a smile: "Before coming to Chang'an, I have studied this matter with the rich patriarch of the Dangxiang clan and Taxi, and everyone agrees on this matter. ”

Tuoba's words made the people present stand up and applaud all the time, and even Li Xuanqing couldn't help but be moved, the tide of the times brought by himself had indeed unconsciously affected the surrounding tribes to move closer to the Han nation. Although ethnic integration will lose the independence of ethnic minorities, it will bring about a new and vigorous nation.

After the end of the affairs of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the Ministry of Industry and Commerce led by Murong Hanhai and the Ministry of Finance promulgated the main content of the cabinet this year, around the six major economic centers proposed by Li Xuanqing before, the Ministry of Industry and Commerce has a comprehensive layout, and will focus on the construction of these six centers, so as to drive the development of the surrounding areas, involving all walks of life, the shipbuilding and heavy industry center of the Bohai Bay led by Tianjin and the comprehensive industrial and commercial center of the Central Plains Bianliang, although the Central Plains region has experienced war in this era, it has an unparalleled status in the minds of the people of the world, Although the Central Plains started late, but the development is not slow, relying on the location advantage of the Grand Canal transfer station, the north, south and east and west have to pass by the Central Plains, has become a veritable transportation hub, Bianzhou and Luoyang and other places of the wharf is also expanding again and again, it can be said that half of the city relies on water transport to develop. Taking advantage of the transportation advantages, the surrounding Central Plains specialties are also transported to all parts of the country in order. Moreover, cotton planting has also been introduced in the Central Plains, and the cotton textile factory jointly established by the industrial group and the Xu family has also settled in Bianzhou, which will become the largest cotton textile manufacturing center in the country once completed. The two economic centers in the south, Hangzhou and Guangzhou, are vigorously developing the marine economy. In fact, this term was proposed by Li Xuanqing, but after the opening of the marine fishery, a large number of fish and fish meat products were gradually shipped to all parts of the country with the popularization of canned food and salt. These seafood are even transported along the canal from the coast to the westernmost province of Hexi. Chang'an and Sichuan are the political center of the empire, and it is also the material distribution center of Guanzhong and even the entire northwest region. Relying on the advantages of the political center, the Ministry of Construction and the Ministry of Communications have the most complete construction of straight roads in the Guanzhong area, and the construction plans of straight roads within each state are gradually put on the agenda. Relying on strong land transportation and water transportation in the internal network, Chang'an's cargo throughput is gradually rising, the second phase of Chang'an is connected to the two largest industrial centers in Datang, Lingzhou and Fengzhou, Fengling is still the largest industrial center in the country, many military industries of the logistics department are distributed in these two places, and the five wealthy businessmen who went out from these two places will also focus on the two places. The Ministry of Finance followed the steps of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce to spread the Datang Money Village to all parts of the country, focusing on the layout of several major economic centers, and truly spreading the money bank network in the Tang Empire. In addition, the Ministry of Finance has cooperated with the Ministry of Education to establish a financial academy to train professional financial talents to provide financial services for the growing empire.

Speaking of Qianzhuang, we cannot fail to mention the issuance of Tang coins, because of the gold and silver reserve system formulated by Li Xuanqing, although a large amount of gold and silver was seized by the Tiance Army last year, and the gold and silver mines under the Logistics Department and the Ministry of Finance continued to be mined, Qianzhuang returned a large amount of gold and silver on this basis to issue a large number of Tang coins to supply the market, but in the face of vigorous economic development, it is still insufficient. China is a relatively poor country with gold and silver mines, and its own gold and silver mines simply cannot meet its needs, and Li Xuanqing's gold and silver reserve system is too advanced. Seeing that the issuance of Tang coins could not keep up with the economic development, Li Xuanqing and Qiaoxi discussed for a long time and began to take out the silver bills of later generations, and issued special large-value village exchange bills with the endorsement of the money village and the reputation of the empire to supply the settlement between the big merchants, and began to implement and improve the transfer system to ensure that the money circulated in the system as much as possible. But even so, the issuance of Tang coins still can't keep up with the amount of copper coins collected from all over the country, and the process of economic development itself creates a lot of wealth that needs to be reflected in Tang coins. For a period of time, the Ministry of Finance even directly approached the military, asking the army to allocate some manpower to collect gold and silver from various places in the course of the war, and directly transport it back to Chang'an.

"Qianzhuang and the Ministry of Finance can consider studying the over-issuance of Tang coins, and do not issue Tang coins in a one-to-one ratio." Li Xuanqing knew the harm caused by deflation, but when he did not open up the Western Regions to obtain a stable source of gold and silver, he could only solve his temporary needs by overissuing Tang coins. It is just that in this era when the financial foundation is extremely weak, the harm of doing so is that once the operation is wrong, it will inevitably bring about a large-scale financial collapse and undermine the achievements of economic development in recent years.

"After the beginning of the year, the navy will form an escort fleet to protect the Xu family's long-distance fleet to Japan, whether it is trading or robbing, we must bring back a large amount of gold and silver." After listening to Yin Honglin's report, Li Xuanqing said directly: "Japan produces silver, and if it doesn't work when the time comes, I'll grab it, just grab a little more." Li Xuanqing's vicious words made everyone at the meeting laugh, but Yin Honglin's eyes suddenly became hot, and he hurriedly asked, "Is the emperor sure that Japan has more gold and silver?" ”

"Don't worry, Japan is now estimated to be poor only with gold and silver. When the time comes, we can sell them anything, and the weapons we don't use, the copper money collected by your treasury, the grain we can't eat, and even the cotton cloth and iron tools that will soon be made on a large scale can be exchanged for gold and silver. When the time comes, let the Marines go and grab a few large silver mines, and we will mine them ourselves. Li Xuanqing's words made many people impatient, and they wished to go over as soon as possible to grab some back, you must know that this year, Qian Zhuang was very nervous about the reserves, and he thought of any way, and even directly issued a ban for a period of time, prohibiting private gold and silver transactions, and confiscated tens of thousands of gold and silver objects directly as gold and silver reserves.

The current big plan of the Ministry of Communications is to build a railway, and the Bohai Bay Railway has not yet been completed, and the line from Chang'an to Lingzhou needs to be built here, and the Railway Department has already explored the terrain along the line to prepare for construction, and the states in Guanzhong have also begun to reserve various materials, and a large number of rails and sleepers have been transported to various places. Once the Changling Railway is opened, it means that the main artery from the Central Plains to the northwest will be officially opened, and the role it will play in the economic development of the empire will be unparalleled. Moreover, the Changling Railway is related to the success or failure of marching into Anxi and passing through the Western Regions, so almost as soon as the Ministry of Communications announced this plan, it received the full support of the military, and Yang Yi's National Guard directly sent hundreds of thousands of prisoners in Lingnan to Chang'an and other places to wait for an order to start construction, and the construction company mobilized a large number of elite workers to arrange along the line. In order to cope with the difficulties of building the Yellow River Bridge, all the staff of the third brigade of the construction company stayed on the bank of the Yellow River in the winter, trying to find a way to assume the iron bridge.

In fact, Li Xuanqing has understood, at this time, there is basically no big problem in the technical difficulty of building a large iron bridge, and the natural difficulty of building a bridge on the Yellow River is much smaller than that on the Yangtze River, and under the joint efforts of the logistics department and the industrial group, it has been solved one after another, and the model of the first large iron bridge has also been tested.

After the end of the Ministry of Communications, the remaining major departments were much more plain than them, but each department basically had its own focus, and Li Xuanqing was very satisfied after listening to the cabinet's annual plan, and the cabinet that he wholeheartedly supported finally had the ability to handle state affairs independently, and also had the method of formulating national policies in the face of the new economic environment.

In contrast to the entire development plan of the Cabinet, the military is preparing for disarmament for the first time. Xu Tianxiang was almost shocked as soon as he opened his mouth, and even Cen Tianshi was a little puzzled: "Tianxiang, although the cabinet has a lot of development plans for next year, the money for the army is allocated separately, and the southwest has not been completely pacified, and Anxi also needs to be recovered, is it a little too early for you to disarm now?" ”

Li Xuanqing motioned to Xu Tianxiang to continue, "At present, the Tiance Army has a total of 780,000 regular troops, 13,000 navy, and 280,000 logistics and national guards, totaling more than one million. The annual military expenditure also needs to include the technical research and development expenses of the logistics department. Therefore, after converging several major departments for discussion, the Tiance Mansion reported to the emperor for approval to prepare for the reduction of part of the regular army. Xu Tianxiang said with a smile: "According to the plan of the General Staff Department, the total strength of the regular army of the army will be reduced to less than 500,000, the National Guard will also be reduced to 200,000, and the expansion of the Navy Department will be about 50,000, and a total of 200,000 will need to be disarmed." Subsequently, the General Assembly issued a disarmament plan, which organized some of the armed forces into a number of mixed corps to cope with the new combat environment and the innovation of new military technology. ”

In addition, the logistics department will also cut some projects again, this time handing over a total of 18 large industrial groups and 23 factories and mining enterprises to the cabinet. In addition, three large research centers under the logistics department will also be sold to industrial groups at a price. In the future, the Armament Department of the Logistics Department will concentrate its efforts on developing new types of weapons and equipment to ensure the durability of the military's weapons manufacturing and technological innovation. Zuo Tiancheng stood up and continued: "The logistics department will try out a new method for the transportation of military supplies from this year, and hand over the transportation task to civilian transportation companies, so as to reduce the establishment of the logistics department. ”

"The National Guard was officially separated from the Ministry of Logistics and became the second independent armed force in addition to the regular troops of the Tiance Army, which was under the direct command of the Tiance Government. The construction company would also become an independent state-owned company, split into a number of construction subsidiaries that would be responsible for the empire's large-scale infrastructure work. Yang Yi then Zuo Tiancheng stood up and talked about the affairs of several departments under him, also adhering to the pace of disarmament.

The several major actions of the Tiance Mansion made the others scratch their heads, and the generals of the major group armies attending the meeting did not know what was going on for a while. I only heard Xu Tianxiang continue: "Except for a few troops in the southwest, the other troops will be fully redressed from now on. The downsizing plan and the rearmament plan were launched at the same time, and the whole army was put into use with new weapons, and all battalion-level generals will return to the military academy in batches to study for three months in accordance with the plan of the General Staff Department to learn new tactics and how to use new weapons. ”

Xu Tianxiang's words surprised Xue Yang and the others, and they immediately guessed the reason, "Could it be that the musket has been finalized?" ”

Li Xuanqing looked at the people around him, nodded and said with a smile: "Not only muskets, but also new artillery has been finalized, and in the future war, my Tiance Army will be three hundred years ahead of this era, and the use of muskets will enable us to win the battle with a small number of troops." ”

"Ladies and gentlemen, the second year of the Apocalypse is a year of continuity and transformation, and I hope you will continue to work hard to realize our dreams as soon as possible and build a great empire that has never been seen before." Li Xuanqing's words echoed in the Changqing Palace, shaking everyone's hearts.