In addition to the dispute between the old school of heavy agriculture and the new school of heavy mercantilism, this economic banquet was not without other bright spots. For example, the crown prince put forward his own views on the problem of the current large number of honorary officials in the court, and the prince believed that officials should be set up according to the matter, and for some official positions that only exist in name but have lost their meaning in fact, such as Jiuqing and the like, except for the Dali Temple, Taichang Temple, Taifu Temple, Sinong Temple, etc., which still have some functions, and have no function only as honorary official positions to place high-ranking ministers, the prince suggested that they be removed. And the temples such as Taichang and Taifu, the prince thought that they could be merged with the Ministry of Rites. This is tantamount to taking another step forward on the basis of Li Jifu's elimination of redundant officials.

As a supplement to the officials who had lost their official positions and those who sought official positions, Li Chun suggested increasing the number of lords, which on the one hand would satisfy the vanity of the seekers, and on the other hand, the lords were only a noble position and did not require a sub-burden from the treasury. For example, a soldier who has made meritorious contributions in the upcoming Western Expedition can be transferred by beheading the third level, and he can get the title of Cloud Cavalry Captain after three turns. Another example is that the leaders of all walks of life in society, such as the gentry, can be awarded a certain title after making a certain contribution. (Li Yu nodded, well, for example, the old Ferguson did jazz.) ）

This idea is good, but there are also objections. Fan Xichao, the new auxiliary general, opened his cloudy eyes and asked Dou Yidao, a martial arts general who was sent by the prince to discuss:

"Dare to ask General Dou, if there is a group of soldiers, let's talk about Mo swordsman, the meritorious service is very great, everyone is awarded two to three turns, and the gang leader only makes two turns, and the rank is lower than that of the soldiers, dare to ask him how to lead this group of soldiers with a higher rank than him?"

This is not out of the question. Dou Yi couldn't help but be speechless for a while, and stammered:

"If you have a lot of credit, you can be promoted to his gang as a team leader."

This is also the case, low-level officers such as the gang commander, team leader, and brigade leader will definitely charge forward in wartime, and the probability of death is very high. But what if what Fan Xichao said really happens, and there is no place to tune it? Just when the group of people in the East Palace were thinking about this issue, Li Yu, who was sitting on the dragon chair, had already slapped his thigh and said:

"Issuing military merit medals!"

"Military merit medal?"

Fan Xichao and other generals from the bottom all had their eyes lit up. Li Yu gestured:

"What I mean is that there are as many levels of military merit as there are military merit medals, such as beheading the third-class meritorious service, and beheading the general to capture the flag and establish the special meritorious service. All those who have made meritorious contributions, whether they are generals or soldiers, will be issued with a military merit medal of this size and hung on their chests as an honor. ”

The idea was really creative. Even Old Du You stretched out his ears and asked:

"Your Majesty, then this military merit medal is such a size, how to distinguish the size of the military merit?"

Tan Wang Li blurted out:

"Father, the son thought that he could make military medals into different styles, print different patterns, or make them with different materials."

Li Chun's gaze was cold, and then he warmed up again, and said:

"Second brother, good idea."

Li Yu saw all this in his eyes, didn't say anything, nodded and said:

"It's a good idea, for example, the military merit medal of special merit can be made of gold and jade, and it is marked with the pattern of Danfeng Gate. You can also give a nice name to each level of military merit, such as Danfeng Chaoyang, blue sky and white sun, and so on. ”

Everybody said yes. Li Yu originally planned to hand over this matter to the Ministry of War, but seeing that Li Jing was dumbfounded, he handed over this matter to Li Jing to supervise. Li Jing was overjoyed, and Li Chun, of course, couldn't say anything. Just showed off his other sword.

As the prince of a country, it is a little unreasonable to just put forward such a political opinion as downsizing, you must know that Li Jing, the king of Tan, and Li Zong, the king of Wei, are all long and tirade. As the crown prince, Li Chun is of course unwilling to be left behind. In addition to continuing to downsize the imperial court, Li Chun didn't know which tendon was right, and put forward a proposal that made Li Yu stunned, that is, to establish a civil servant system in the Tang Dynasty.

According to the statistics of the Ministry of Officials, there are only a few thousand officials in the entire Tang Dynasty. How is it possible to rely on these thousands of people to run such a country? At the local level, officials have their own assistants, such as the county has county lieutenants, chief bookkeepers, etc., and the state has other drivers, Sima, etc., all of which are auxiliary officials appointed by the imperial court. In addition, each government also has personnel hired by officials themselves, such as knives and pens, errand servants, etc., and these people are called officials. Some officials with higher status who can open a government and build a government, such as the Jiedu envoy, can establish the shogunate and promote officials by themselves, so many Jinshi who have been selected by Quan, such as Han Yu back then, have gone to various feudal towns?

There is a way that is an iron-clad battalion of soldiers, and officials will leave as soon as their term of office expires or is transferred, but these officials below often do not move. Most of the officials come from other places, and they are not familiar with the place, and there are many who are not familiar with government affairs, so they have to rely on these small officials to be officials. Most of these petty officials are private, and after a long time, the power of the government will inevitably be manipulated by these petty officials. Anyway, these small officials are supported by the chief officials and the local government, Li Chun suggested that it is better to include these small officials in the scope of examination and recruitment, first, these small officials can be controlled, and second, the Tang Dynasty has accumulated in the past two hundred years, there are too many talents, and there are too few official positions, and the talents will be resentful if they have no way out, which is not conducive to the construction of a harmonious Datang, and giving them these positions can play a role in uniting a large number of people.

No need to ask, this idea must have been thought up by Bai Juyi. Li Yu, like everyone else, grew his mouth in amazement. Becoming an official is a noble and elegant thing, and when I heard that even untouchables who were born to lead cars and sell pulp can become officials, there were naturally many people who opposed it, but most of the ministers who really knew about state affairs were in favor. Li Yu then instructed Pei Yan and his officials to study.

The third suggestion of the crown prince Li Yu is also related to the way out of talents. However, this suggestion was too much to do, and Li Chun hid behind his back. And the person who made this suggestion to Li Chun was sent by Li Yu. So it's a bit confusing. The generals Wang Chengyuan and Buyi Baiqi suggested that the scope of the award be expanded, not only civil and military officials, but also those who did other things, as long as they could have certain achievements, they would be awarded low-ranking titles such as viscounts or barons. This matter is not without precedent, for example, Cao Ba is just a painter, because he paints well, he was awarded the position of general by Xuanzong. By analogy, anyone who writes poetry, paints, calligraphy, is successful in business, and even farms and grows flowers, raises pigs and fattens, and makes good institutions can be awarded knighthoods. As soon as this proposal came out, it really caused an uproar**. A discerning person could see at a glance that there must be a businessman's power behind Wang Chengyuan and Bai Qi, so the opposition suddenly rose.

Although Wang Chengyuan repeatedly claimed that there were certain restrictions on the awarding of knighthoods, and that it would take several years of testing and evaluation, there were still people who hid behind people and scolded him for being a rebel, Hu Er, and asked Li Yu to veto this proposal. This time, it wasn't until Li Yu took the case that the turmoil provoked by King Gui Li Lun was suppressed. In line with the principle that whatever conservatives oppose, we must support, Li Yu reserved this proposal for discussion.

In short, the banquet was a great success, and suggestions from all sides were collected in every detail. However, it is a pity that although there are many suggestions, there are not many valuable suggestions for the discussion on how to maintain long-term stability and prosperity that Li Yu wants. Perhaps the phenomenon of ZTE has just appeared, and people have not yet shifted their interest to this topic. At the end of the feast, Li Yu announced that there would be a discussion on this issue next year. Moreover, Li Yu also said the famous sentence from Huang Zongxi, "Its prosperity is also vigorous, and its death is also sudden" to arouse discussion, and secretly began to arrange a group of people to operate.

In contrast, the most striking thing about this feast was the controversy over agriculture and mercantilism. Li Yu didn't know about the little Jiujiu of those big families, and of course he was not stupid enough to let the new faction he secretly support openly propose to take commerce as the foundation of the country. After three days of comprehensive and fierce debate between the mercantilists and the peasants, the mercantilists began to make great strides of retreat. Li Yu said with a final word:

"Datang still takes agriculture as the foundation of the country, and without farmers to grow food, I have no food to eat. But from ancient times to the present, the circulation of the world, the exchange of goods, and businessmen are indispensable. In my opinion, let's make commerce a useful supplement to agriculture. ”

It's just a sentence that takes agriculture as the main body and commerce as a useful supplement to agriculture, which plugs the mouths of the old school and wins space for the new school to improve its development, so after this feast, everyone said that the emperor's level is high, it is really high.

If you want to alleviate or even resolve the contradiction between the old and new factions, a single sentence will naturally not work, and in terms of business policy, Li Yu made concessions to the family. However, specific measures will not be available until the newly established Ministry of Commerce is operational.

In addition to the original Ministry of Officials, the Ministry of Households, the Ministry of War, the Ministry of Crime, the Ministry of Rites, and the Ministry of Industry, the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Agriculture were newly added, and the Sinong Temple was upgraded to the Ministry of Agriculture, with the first superintendent of agriculture Li Yijian as the secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture, Liu Mian and Han Ye as the Ministry of Agriculture, Zhang Hongjing as the secretary of the Ministry of Commerce, Liu Zongyuan as the head of the household department and Lu Tan as the head of the Ministry of Commerce.

In addition, there is also a far-reaching result, that is, after the feast, Li Yu issued an edict to divide part of the Chongwen Pavilion and set up the Jingshi University Hall, and entrusted Du You, who had already been Zhishi, to take charge of the matter. At the beginning, Li Yu defined this place as a place where only scholars were taught, and no official positions were asked, and made it clear that next year's sutra banquet would be transferred to the Jingshi University Hall. All scholars who have insight in the scriptures, even if they are cloth, are invited to teach at Beijing Normal University. The advantage of this is that there is a place for scholars to get together and quarrel.

The Jingshi University Hall was defined as an institution, and the emperor deliberately set aside a part of the Nanyuan for the purpose of running the school, and ordered that 50,000 yuan be allocated from the inner government every year as a fund for running the school, which was allocated for ten consecutive years. What is even more surprising is that Li Yu ordered the internal government to find a few undesirable people from among the scholars of the Ming Arithmetic Branch and set up an accounting office to be responsible for auditing the income and expenditure of the fund as a third party. As far as Li Yu himself is concerned, this is to set up an independent university at his own expense in the feudal era, and he himself does not know what will happen to the result, but he just operates according to the modern system in his understanding.

In fact, he forgot that ancient China had a long tradition of universities, such as the famous Bailu Academy, Yuelu Academy and other four major academies have existed as private schools for thousands of years, and the history is much longer than that of Western universities. Wouldn't it be better to refer to what other academies do? That's a real social school, pure public welfare.

Du You, an old man, really couldn't do this thing, so Li Yu sent his own old five Ju kings, Li Shu, and the old eight Shao kings, Li Yue, to help do this thing, these two people are the most knowledgeable among adult princes, and they are the most suitable to do this thing.

When the Beijing Normal University Hall was listed in autumn and August, the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Agriculture had been operating for several months, and the internal affairs of Datang were in good order, and the summer and autumn harvests were all ripe, and there was even a phenomenon of cheap rice in a good year. Just as a group of sour people praised the reappearance of the prosperous era, Li Yu was having a headache for Gu Yi hurting the peasants. In order to solve the problem of cheap grain hurting peasants, Li Yu on the one hand ordered the military headquarters to buy and sell military rations on the spot for all armies in western Beijing, and on the other hand, ordered all localities to purchase grain at the price of previous years and store it in the regular liquidation. Of course, a considerable part of them were transported to Guanzhong to calm down the sharp rise in grain prices caused by the purchase of military rations. Commercially, after the establishment of the Ministry of Commerce, the commercial tax was further reduced to 18 taxes and 1, and business travel between major cities was endless, and a prosperous scene was a scene. This is in stark contrast to the strict combat readiness of the armies in western Beijing.

Jingyuan Jiedu envoy, Jingguo Gong Hao Xuan, Fengxiang Jiedu envoy, Liangguo Gong Li Yu, Xia Sui Jiedu envoy, Chen Guogong Li Guangyan, Baoyi Jun Jiedu envoy Liu Yong and other border town envoys successively wrote a letter, reporting that before and after the autumn harvest, horse thieves in Tubo flowed into the town to commit crimes, burning, killing and looting all kinds of evil, and asked to cross the border to crack down. In line with the principle of harmony and friendship with neighbors, the Tang government entrusted the envoy of Jingyuan Jiedu to officially send a note to the Tibetan officials, demanding that the Tibetan crackdown on horse thieves and give an explanation to the people of the Tang Dynasty. Without waiting for the Tubo to respond, the Jingyuan Jiedu envoy reported that he had successfully eliminated a group of horse thieves, and it was found that it was a modification of the Tubo army.