The next day, Zhao Jun's thirtieth birthday.

Zhao Zhen held a grand banquet for him, and everyone in the Constitutional Yuan attended one after another, and all the officials congratulated him.

Nowadays, the power of the Constitutional Yuan in the DPRK is extraordinary, and it can be said that the Manchu Dynasty is full of supporters.

It seems to be divided into different factions, but in fact it has been twisted into a rope.

For example, in addition to Lu Yijian, Song Shou, and Jia Changchao in the Political Yuan, there are also Chen Yaozuo, Wang Gongchen, Zhang Dexiang, and Chen Zhizhong in the Lu Party.

In addition to Wang Zeng, Cai Qi and Han Ju, who died of illness, there are also Zheng Jian, Ye Qingchen, Song Qi, Song Zhen and others.

Zhao Jun's henchmen include Li Di and Xia Zhu.

The rest of Fan Zhongyan, Yan Shu, Sheng Du, Zhang Shixun, Jiang Tang and others only seemed to be neutral, but they were actually willing to follow Zhao Jun.

In addition, more than 20 or 30 departments such as Du Yan, Hu Su, Li Ruogu, and others only have great power in their own departments, and they can only obey the arrangements of the Constitutional Yuan in formulating national strategies.

In this way, as long as there is not much opposition from the Lu Party and the Wang Party, the policy can be easily passed.

In fact, on weekdays, Zhao Jun's opponents in the Constitutional Yuan were mainly Lu Yijian, and Wang Zeng only occasionally raised objections when he thought it was inappropriate.

And as long as it is beneficial to the country, Zhao Jun convinces Zhao Zhen, and Lu Yijian has no way to obstruct it, like under the examination law, even if his son is arrested, as soon as Zhao Jun comes back, he will have to take a break.

Therefore, most of the imperial court officials have accepted the new official system after the reform, and under the leadership of the political system, they have begun to move towards the road of vigorous development.

After his birthday, while Zhao Jun was dealing with state affairs, he began to ask Fan Zhongyan to prepare for a salary draw.

Beginning in January, the imperial court successively withdrew the sons and daughters of the noble generals in the army under various names, or transferred them back to Bianliang, or turned them into idle posts.

These include Ge Huaimin (son of Ge Ba), Xu Huaide (son of Xu Jun), Zhe Jimin (grandson of Zhe Yuqing), Gao Jixuan (son of Gao Qiong) and other generals who were more famous in the Song and Xia Wars in history.

At the beginning of the Song Dynasty, there were only one or two hundred generals, but after decades of multiplication, there are now almost three to four generations, and the number of descendants has long been multiplied, reaching tens of thousands.

Among the tens of thousands of people, the actual number in the army is not much, and many families have declined, and they have even been reduced to Hanako.

For example, "Zizhi Tongjian" records that in the thirty years after the death of Cao Han, a famous general in the early Song Dynasty, his ten sons quickly lost the Cao family's property, and many of his grandsons became beggars.

But even if it's not much, there are still one or two thousand people.

Most of these people served as middle and lower-level officers in the army, and many of them directly served as battalion commanders and envoys, or even higher-level military positions.

However, Lao Fan came forward, but there were almost no twists and turns.

No matter whether you are a proud soldier or a noble son of a general, you have to obediently obey the order, and there is no room for refutation.

In the final analysis, Lao Fan defeated Western Xia and retired from Liao in recent years, and his prestige in the army is very high, which is already higher than Wang Deyong, who has now been promoted from a privy deputy envoy to a privy envoy because of his military exploits.

Even many civilian officials felt that although he was a civilian official, he was suspected of being a high-ranking official, and often impeached him for possible rebellion, which shows how famous he is in the army.

After he came out, a large number of middle- and lower-level noble children were transferred, and there was hardly any wave.

In April, Lao Fan began to set up censors, and after the death of Han Ju, the original secretary of the Ministry of Industry, he was replaced by Jia Changchao, the secretary of the Ministry of Education, and Fu Bi was the secretary of the Ministry of Education.

However, the imperial court re-replaced, and changed Fu Bi to the military department secretary, and the original military department secretary Zhang Dexiang was changed to the Ministry of Education, and Fu Bi was ordered to preside over the inventory of the number of soldiers.

Fu Bi set up another professional team, including Zeng Lin, the left attendant of the military department, Sun Kang, the middle of the military department, and Wang Anshi, Huang Shu, Su Xun and others who were transferred back from the local magistrate county for just three years.

These new jinshi are the same as being the imperial history, they are young and energetic, and they happen to be a political achievement, so it is naturally more appropriate to hand them over.

The number of officials who had returned from the top to the bottom and from the local area was not enough, so they were transferred from various departments and set out for a team of more than 300 people, and set out in May of the fourth year of Qingli to go to all parts of the country to check the number of soldiers.

In fact, there is no need to make such a big deal about people to investigate, and now soldiers are stationed in various places, except for the local box army, most of the soldiers are concentrated in Bianliang, Shaanxi Road and Hebei Road.

Just let the local government do it.

However, Zhao Jun suspects that there is not only a problem of eating vacancies, but also other internal information, so this team is equivalent to the imperial court supervision team.

Their duties are equivalent to those of the imperial history, and there are about 2,000 battalions in the country, and each person has to check six to seven on average, and after they are stationed in a battalion, not only must the higher departments fully cooperate, but also have the command of this battalion.

This means that if the original battalion commander is a son of a nobleman who has been transferred, he will be directly accepted by the supervision team for this battalion.

If not, the battalion commander will also be under the command of the monitoring team, and may even be isolated and detained for a period of time, and will not be released until the investigation is clear.

In order to prevent the army from being impetuous and in internal turmoil during this period of time, causing the Western Xia and Liao States to see the opportunity and may take advantage of the situation, the imperial court ordered Zhang Kang, the deputy privy envoy, to lead four firearms armies to Hebei Road, and ordered Wang Deyong to take three firearms armies to Shaanxi Road.

In this way, there were 35,000 pure firearms troops on the Hebei and Shaanxi roads, including 31,500 musketeers, 2,500 artillerymen, and about 15,000 logistics troops escorting artillery, grenades, and other firearms.

Whether it was a field battle or a defense of the city, it was enough to deal with the sudden attack of the Liao and Western Xia cavalry.

June 4th.

Recently, the imperial court is checking the number of troops in the country, and there have been no twists and turns among the hundred officials.

First, this decree was passed by the Constitutional Yuan, and the following is just to implement it.

Second, this does not involve the interests of the officials.

The imperial court should have done to check the number of troops, but the supervision was unfavorable before, coupled with the unspoken rules of the army left by Zhao Kuangyin, the officials were too lazy to investigate, so they neglected to manage.

It is also normal for verification to take place now.

But among the nobles of Jiangmen, it set off huge waves like stormy waves, which made many heads of the families of Jiangmen nobles panic.

On this day, several heads of the noble family who had a good relationship on weekdays got together to chat.

It was the height of summer, in the Ma Mansion, there were five people drinking in the backyard, and at the beginning they were pushing the cups and changing the lamps normally, and when it was almost time, Ma Zhengju, the owner of the Ma Mansion, complained: "The court is trying to force us to death." ”

Ma Zhengju is the nephew of Ma Renyu, a famous general in the early Song Dynasty, whose son was exiled to Hainan for crimes in his early years, and died of illness on the way. Ma Renyu's elder brother died early, raising his brother's son.

This nephew is not a good stubble, relying on his uncle is Ma Renyu, he acts mischiefly on weekdays, and one day he drank too much wine and beat a passing young man to death for no reason.

Ma Renyu was a person with excellent conduct among the famous generals in the early Song Dynasty, and he did not get used to his nephew, let the yamen act according to the law, and kill people to pay for his life.

As a result, Ma Renyu had no descendants, and Zhao Guangyi took pity on him, so after his death, he let his nephew's son inherit the noble position of the Ma family, serve as the deputy envoy of the Xijing Zuozang Treasury, and enjoy the support of the state.

And several other people are also not small, including Wang Xianqi's grandson Wang Shilong, Yang Guangyi's grandson Yang Rende, Zhao Yanhui's grandson Zhao Kaiji and Han Chongyun's grandson Han Yunsheng.

Wang Shilong used to mix well, and he was the deputy envoy of the Imperial City Division, but he was fired by Zhao Jun for being late, so he has always held a grudge against Zhao Jun.

He said viciously: "This is all done by that damn Zhao Jun!" This man deserves to die! ”

"Eh, Brother Wang is cautious."

Han Yunsheng stretched out his hand, looked left and right, and saw that there was no one around, so he said in a low voice: "Now that Zhao Zhiyuan is powerful and trusted by His Majesty, if outsiders hear it, I'm afraid it will be bad for you." ”

"It's okay, they're all my own brothers."

Wang Shilong was mentioned by Han Yunsheng, and he was also a little awakened, only to know that he had said nonsense after drinking, and hurriedly made up for it: "My brother will never harm me." ”

"That's right."

Zhao Kaiji also said: "Just say this today, don't spread it." ”

Among the heads of the Xungui family, some of them are second-generation children, except for Cao Cong, the son born to Cao Bin in his later years, who is only about fifty years old now, and the rest of them may be sixty years old or older.

The three generations of children are generally around thirty or forty years old, and everyone can't play with each other.

Therefore, their group of three generations of generals often played together from childhood to adulthood, and they have been in a relationship for many years, among which Yang Rende even had a good relationship with Cao Xiu when he was a child.

Ma Zhengju diverted the topic and asked Yang Rende: "Old Yang, you went to Cao Xiu's house before and asked if anything came up?" ”

"Ugh."

Yang Rende sighed: "Lao Cao asked us to listen to the words of the imperial court, and we should not have any stubborn resistance." The work that the imperial court has given us is more profitable than it is now, he has already been released from the army anyway, he is now the imperial envoy, but his younger brother Cao Ren is now the president of the Cao family's trading company. ”

Wang Shilong learned that his former colleagues had now completely given up the army to make a living, and frowned: "It's impossible for their Cao family to have no dirty things, don't they have any intention of covering it up?" ”

"There is a queen in someone's family, Mrs. Zhiyuan, what are you afraid of?"

Zhao Kaiji laughed at himself: "Like me, I said that it is the son of the noble Jiangmen, but in fact he has no power and no backstage, once the incident happens, doesn't the court want to clean us up?" ”

"You said, if you admit your mistakes to the court, will the court look at the love of our fathers and open the net?"

Han Yunsheng hesitated: "You have also seen the attitude of the official family and the prefect, and they are willing to discuss with us, rather than directly starting to do it, doesn't this mean that there is room for maneuver in the matter?" ”

"This"

The others looked at each other and groaned, as if wondering if this would work.

"Huh."

Wang Shilong sneered: "Let's not talk about other things, just say that your son led more than a dozen pro-soldiers in your hometown in Cizhou, took a fancy to other women, beat her husband to death, and rushed home. ”

Han Yunsheng was silent.

"And you, Lao Yang, your family has sold a lot of ordnance to Western Xia and Liao, right? I heard you even have a grenade"

"Lao Ma, you secretly killed some old soldiers in the army who were dying of old age, so as to eat the empty quota, and spread the news, do you think the official family will let you go, or will the prefect let you go?"

"Lao Zhao, you have also done a lot of dirty things, once it is revealed, how many lives can the family have?"

"Everyone is a grasshopper on a rope, as long as it is found out, no one can escape."

Wang Shilong said one by one: "What's more, the imperial court has now begun to check the number of troops, hasn't it already started to do it directly?" Save it, what is now in front of us is a dead end! ”

As he spoke, he poured himself a jug of wine, took another sip, and then laughed mockingly, as if he had given up on himself and faced the reality calmly.

The rest bowed their heads and fell silent.

The generals and nobles can't stand up in Bianliang, because in the environment of the Song Dynasty, the civil official group is more horizontal than them, and the officials of the imperial history and the imperial platform will not get used to them.

But in the army managed by the localities and subordinate battalions, they still have some energy.

After all, although Sanya does not have the actual right to transfer troops, he can control the work of promotion, rewards and punishments, daily training, management, etc., and these people serve in Sanya, and there are some children in the family who serve as commanders in the battalions below, officers such as Duyu Marquis, so they can naturally meddle in certain military affairs.

Therefore, it seems that the Jiangmen Xungui family, which is quite honest in Bianliang Kaifeng Mansion, is lawless and domineering in the locality, especially in the ordinary people and the part of the army they manage.

Just as many people in the township don't have to think about the emperor and prime minister, or even the local county magistrate, county magistrate, or county lieutenant, the clan chief, landlord and gentry in the township are already big people who can decide their fate.

They also have the power of life and death for some other specific groups of people.

Therefore, they can make money or engage in privileges through some conventional means, and the sale of prohibited items is a regular operation of the generals, and the rest of the illegal activities are naturally countless.

Therefore, it is not that they are unwilling to accept the conditions offered by the imperial court, but once the imperial court begins to clean up the army and screen the army strictly, the bad things they have done before will be revealed at once, and unless the imperial court can endure it, they will all have to be killed.

If Zhao Jun hadn't come, they might have agreed.

After all, they themselves do not have the energy to resist, and later during the Song Shenzong and Song Zhezong periods, there were different degrees of disarmament, although there were not many cuts, and there was a high probability that the interests of the generals were not involved, but there was not much resistance.

However, Zhao Jun came.

He can't tolerate sand in his eyes, which is something that the whole Song Dynasty knows.

Liu Yuanyu, who was more powerful than them, sold contraband and was not killed, but he was sentenced to several years and exiled directly to Hainan.

Which of the Han family and the Ma family is not the prime minister's family? The offense may even be lighter than theirs, and what about the end?

How dare they let the court lift the lid.

For a while, the silence of everyone made the venue as quiet as a lake without waves.

At this time, someone suddenly threw a stone, and saw Han Yunsheng look at Wang Shilong and said, "Then according to your old king's intentions, can we just sit and wait for death?" ”

"No, I have an idea."

"Oh? You talk about it. ”

"It's just that this idea is a big crime to kill the head, I don't dare to talk nonsense."

"It's all your own brothers, what are you afraid of?"

"Then I'll say it."

Wang Shilong borrowed the strength of wine, looked around at everyone, and said in a low voice: "There is a master behind me who instructs me, if the envoy who went to inspect is assassinated, this matter can be solved!" ”

"What?"

The crowd was shocked: "Are you crazy? ”

"I'm not crazy."

Wang Shilong shook his head and said: "Think about it, the imperial court is already investigating us, if we continue, we will definitely die, but if the envoy is assassinated, then this matter will only end in the end, and we can live." Between life and death, you can choose for yourself. ”

"Huh."

Ma Zhengju sneered: "I think you drank too much wine, plotting to assassinate the envoy, and regarded it as a rebellion, not to mention more than 300 people, you can kill them?" If you want to die, don't take us with you. ”

"First, there are more than 300 envoys, and we will only investigate our own part."

Wang Shilong said in a deep voice: "Second, when you go out, there is always a possibility of an accident, who knows?" What's more, if you don't dare to do it, then everyone will die together in the end, why don't you dare to fight? ”

The crowd was silent, and no one spoke.

But the thought, like a stone thrown into a calm lake, rippled uncontrollably.

Yes.

The current situation is that if the Qin mission is sent out to investigate the troops under their jurisdiction, the old man may be found out.

Once the previous crime happened, no one present could run away.

If you murder Chincha, you might be able to live.

"The final decision of the murder envoy, I think it's better to try to cover up the evidence first."

In the end, Han Yunsheng sighed.

In fact, they all know that this is very difficult, they used to show off their might in the army before, and there are too many people involved in the case, so it is impossible to seal it down.

Many soldiers knew about the situation, and once they were caught by the Chin Cha or reported by someone, they would fall in an instant.

So it's hard to cover the lid.

(End of chapter)