"Does the emperor really have a way?" Cen Tianshi asked a little hesitantly. In fact, he has been studying for a long time recently, including the ruling methods adopted by the Han and Tang dynasties in the northwest, but he has never been able to find the law. After experiencing the division of feudal towns after the Anshi Rebellion, Cen Tianshi hated political institutions that did not separate military and government. Once the frontier officials have mastered the two major powers of military and political affairs and are thousands of miles away from the central government, it is easy to breed the ambitions of the frontier officials, and it will inevitably bring hidden dangers to this unprecedented empire. Moreover, this system can become extremely unstable as the empire expands. That's why Cen Tianshi tried his best to find a new way.

Cen Tianshi's question did not move Li Xuanqing in the slightest, he understood what these people thought, and they all came to a misunderstanding. Li Xuanqing motioned to the guards guarding at the door to find Qiaoxi to come over, and said with a smile: "Is this matter so difficult?" How many giants of your empire are worried about this? In fact, to put it bluntly, it is something that can be done in one sentence. ”

Li Xuanqing's ridicule made everyone a little helpless, no way, his way of thinking as an emperor seems to be completely different from his own people, and there are always ways in his mind that others can't think of, this has been the case since the Fengzhou era, whether it is the reform again and again or the formulation of the basic principles of the empire's political structure, every move is unexpected, but when you think about it carefully, it is all a rainy day to poke at the point.

"Let's talk about the Civil Affairs Cabinet first." Li Xuanqing looked at everyone and coughed and smiled: "Actually, the civil affairs part is still the implementation of the provincial system, grasp the strategic place to build the city, and then rule the surrounding area with the city as the center, there is no problem in this area." Before Li Xuanqing's words were finished, Cen Tianshi smiled bitterly: "But the emperor's northwest side is too far away from Chang'an, and the middle road is difficult to walk, and it takes too long to go back and forth, and our central government's control over the province over there will inevitably gradually weaken with the decline of distance. ”

"In other words, Sir also thinks that there is nothing wrong with the provincial system itself, but only because of the distance and the road, right?" Li Xuanqing turned around and smiled: "Isn't this building a railway?" ”

"Poof" Wang Houchun squirted out a sip of tea directly, and was completely choked by Li Xuanqing's words, Yang Tiancheng shook his head and slapped him a few times and said: "Sure enough, we haven't seen this most direct thing." It's just that if the Western Expeditionary Army goes all the way to the west, will we also build a railway all the way to the west? The cost of this is too great, there are too many deserts and wastelands to the west, and I am afraid that when the time comes, we will have to build roads on a large scale while continuing to fight, which will slow down the development of the domestic economy. ”

Yang Tiancheng's words show that he understands the change in transportation mode, the cost of railway construction is too high, even if the main labor force of the Northwest Railway directly uses prisoners of war, reducing labor costs to a minimum, but the most important building materials and railroad tracks currently need to be transported from the interior to the front, which is equivalent to offsetting the reduced labor costs. However, Li Xuanqing also has his own ideas about this, Hexi Province is already preparing to build a steel plant, especially Suzhou, which is Jiuquan in later generations, is also the gathering place of the steel industry of the Northwest Heavy Industry. However, the reason why this move has dragged on until now is that Li Xuanqing has not been able to make up his mind about the pollution of the steel plant and the destruction of the environment in the northwest. Although the steel industry has developed in recent years, a variety of new steelmaking furnaces and iron-making furnaces have emerged, not only the steel output has been increasing, but also the efficiency is increasing, but the pollution of the atmosphere has not decreased much. Although Li Xuanqing and Zhang Quanfu had done their best to increase the area of green vegetation, and the environmental damage in the Tang Dynasty and later generations was very different, Li Xuanqing was still worried.

It's just that under the condition that the Western Expeditionary Army was victorious and the northwest territory was expanding too fast, Li Xuanqing finally decided to start the Northwest Heavy Industry. The first batch of Suzhou steel bases have begun to be officially launched, and even in winter, the construction situation in Suzhou has not stagnated at all.

"I have asked Zhang Qiang to be in charge of the formation of the Suzhou Iron and Steel Project, and when the time comes, the Royal Industrial Group, the Murong family and the Yuwen family will jointly form a steel consortium in the northwest to meet the demand for steel products in the northwest region." Li Xuanqing saw Qiaoxi walk in, waved his hand, motioned for her to sit beside him, and continued: "In this way, the entire Northwest will be driven by this, and the first phase of the Northwest Railway will at least lay the main line to Shule." Shule is the main transportation hub in Northwest China, and then radiates to drive the surrounding areas. ”

Li Xuanqing looked at Cen Tian and said with a smile: "In this way, at least in the first stage, the entire territory of Anxi will be completely included in the rule of my Tang Dynasty because of this railway." ”

Li Xuanqing's words made everyone silent for a while, indeed, everyone did not understand the change of the entire era of the new mode of transportation of the railway. To be precise, after the emergence of new modes of transportation and their vigorous popularization, in fact, all aspects of the entire Tang Empire have changed unconsciously, some of these changes can be known to everyone for the first time, but some deep-seated changes are not perceptible in a while. In this regard, except for Li Xuanqing and Qiaoxi, two later visitors, no one knows how much this change in transportation mode will bring to this era.

"Driven by this railway artery, the limits of the empire we can control are also constantly expanding, and what you don't know is this" Li Xuanqing looked at Qiaoxi with a smile on his face and said with a smile: "The industrial group is already manufacturing new steam engines, and the efficiency is more than one percent higher than what we are using now." This means that in the future, our trains will be faster, the cargo capacity will be larger, and there will be more carriages that can be towed. The main artery of the railway will inevitably push us further west, and all the land under the former Anxi Dadu will become the land of my Datang. Central Asia, South Asia and even the Persian Gulf region controlled more than 50% of the world's energy, and mastering it was equivalent to mastering the whole world.

Li Xuanqing was thinking about what he was thinking, so after Li Xuanqing stopped, he took over the conversation and continued: "The expansion of the provincial system is actually not a big problem, with railway transportation, we can go all the way to the west, with this artery connected to Chang'an, plus we continue to research and develop faster and faster trains, there will be no problem that the central government cannot control because of the distance." And it's not just the railway, everyone must also know that if you go further west, it will be the hometown of the Persian Protectorate, right? If we can form a Western fleet and build a shipyard on the other side of the West Sea, then there will be another convenient sea route, and what else can stop us from moving forward? ”

"This is called the change of the times." Li Xuanqing simply spread out the map he drew and said with a smile: "Come and see, this is the map drawn by me and Qiaoxi according to ancient books, Anxi to the west is also a vast and extreme land, this land to the south is Persia and body poison, and the sea area in the south of our empire bypasses here, that is, the Manraka here in the Three Buddhas, you can enter the Western Ocean, and naturally from our Nanzhao Province, you can also go directly to the west to the body poison and then west to Persia." And this one is the Northwest Railway we are building, see no, I have already planned, the first phase to Shule, and then gradually take Shule as the center to radiate to Khotan, Xiaye, Andijan and other surrounding areas. Li Xuanqing will definitely not draw a map based on any ancient books, but directly a part of the world map of the future in his mind, anyway, the areas that can be detected at present are basically drawn, and some of the ones that have not been detected have also drawn a vague outline.

"Okay, Your Majesty, I really convinced you and Qiaoxi." Cen Tianshi silently looked at the Northwest Railway network on the map that meandered all the way to the west to Shule, and then drew several branch lines around Shule with Shule as the center, and couldn't help but smile bitterly: "We have held several meetings and haven't come up with any good way, how can we get to the emperor here, it seems that it doesn't take much effort to solve it?" ”

"Sir, it's dark and you forget about the railroad. In fact, transportation is not only railway transportation, and straights may also become the mainstream in the future, becoming a short-distance transportation mode that is not inferior to railways. Qiaoxi followed with a smile: "Who can say for sure what will happen in the future." ”

"Okay, I've already peeled it off. But the emperor's military and political side must have you also planned, right? Cen Tianshi waved his hand to show that he was not so easily hit, but pointed to Xu Tianxiang and the others who were pondering on the side and smiled: "Their General Staff Department and the Ministry of National Defense have also been studying this matter recently." ”

"Well, compared to civil affairs, I'm afraid that the military and political aspects really need to be reconsidered. Approaching our current empire, the territory is vast, and in addition to the garrison, it will expand outward every year, and the original layout is only a little uncomfortable. Xu Tianxiang and Yang Tiancheng looked at each other and said.

"It is possible to adopt the military district system or the theater system." Li Xuanqing nodded and said: "Today's troops are indeed a bit out of place to station and defend, except for the area near Chang'an is the central garrison force, I plan to divide a number of theaters for the empire, so that each theater is equipped with a fixed number of troops for combat duty, and in the case of a small conflict, there is no need for the General Staff to draw troops from other places, and the troops in the exhibition area itself can undertake such a task." "The method of the theater system is actually similar to that of the previous feudal towns, except that there is no political power, and for example, today, the army has been completely separated from the front-line generals from conscription to service, and the distribution of military salaries has also been handed over to the logistics department and the Ministry of Finance, and because there are rich banks, the front-line generals have no other additional powers except for the right to command the army. This is also the fundamental factor for Li Xuanqing to dare to bring out the theater system of later generations; under the situation directly under the central garrison force, even if there is a problem in a certain theater, the military strength possessed by the central government can directly overwhelm the individual theater.

"Do the units on duty and the military commanders in each theater also adopt rotation?" Yang Tiancheng thought for a while and asked, "What is the relationship between the various theaters and the central organs of the General Staff and the Ministry of National Defense?" ”

"Rotation is necessary, but rotation needs to be considered at the discretion of the General Staff, and if there is a war, then the General Staff needs to consider that the war can be carried out smoothly." Li Xuanqing didn't want to say directly: "The daily affairs of the theater are managed by the Ministry of National Defense, including the recruitment and deployment of soldiers, the allocation of various arms and services, and the daily training of troops. As for the General Staff Headquarters, it is still the imperial command body, and any military operation in the theater must be approved by the General Staff and be under the command of the General Staff at any time. "With the increasing improvement of the institutions, the General Staff and the Ministry of Defense have already taken shape for later generations. So after Li Xuanqing finished speaking, Xu Tianxiang and Yang Tiancheng glanced at each other and nodded, so that there were basically not too many problems with the theater system.

"The division of the theater of operations should be studied by the General Staff Headquarters, not as limited to the division of provinces as the civil affairs side, but according to actual needs. As for the National Guard, it can also be deployed in a centralized manner with reference to the theater system in order to save resources. Li Xuanqing thought for a while and admonished.

"In this way, there is no problem with the military and politics, can we have a peaceful and leisurely New Year?" Qiaoxi saw that Li Xuanqing said almost, and immediately clapped his hands and smiled: "This year, I have prepared a lot of good things with Sister Feixue, and there is a lottery link, and everyone is welcome to come to the lottery when the time comes, there will be a grand prize." ”

"Your Majesty, I see that if I have any problems with Tianxiang in the future, don't worry about it secretly, just come and ask for advice, such a difficult problem has been solved by the emperor in a few words." Cen Tianshi said with a smile: "I feel that the gap between us and the emperor is a bit big. ”

"That's still forgotten, there are some things that will only impress you when you think about them, and you will know to avoid those loopholes and omissions in the process of implementation." Li Xuanqing waved his hand to quickly dispel the thoughts of this group of people, and continued: "And you should understand one thing, after the empire becomes larger, the difficulty of ruling lies in how to supervise, after all, there are too many border officials, and the central government's means of supervision are our means of controlling the localities. Therefore, I am afraid that our law court and the security department will be busy next year. The Cabinet should also notify all ministries to set up special inspection teams to strengthen daily inspections in conjunction with the General Staff Department. ”

"Haha, that's Du Yuanzheng's business, I don't want to have anything to do with the law court at all." Wang Houchun and Chen Fan looked at each other and understood the meaning, and said with a smile: "Just for the administrative part, the law court has held hundreds of trials this year, right?" How many people have been taken off their horses? ”

"In the future, there will be more, not only administrative, but also more civil and criminal." Li Xuanqing smiled slightly, not caring about this.