Guide to Traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty.

Chapter 990 0985 [The Emperor has a lot to consider]

Zhu Ming had promised long ago that he would be crowned king when the Jin Dynasty was destroyed, and he would be crowned king again when the Xia Dynasty was destroyed.

However, this time when Xia was destroyed, the one who was crowned king was not the general who led the troops, but Zhang Guangdao who was in charge of the Ministry of War.

Now, there are three princes of different surnames in the Ming Dynasty.

One is Bai Qi, one is Li Bao, and one is Zhang Guangdao.

Deng Chun, the commander-in-chief of the expedition against Xia, was granted the title of Duke.

The deputy commander Li Yanxian was granted the title of Duke of the County.

They have both been transferred back to the central government, the former serving in the Privy Council and the latter in the Ministry of War.

As long as he is not crowned king, he will still have the opportunity to lead troops in the future. Maybe one day Li Yanxian will be thrown out to be the chief commander.

If the situation really gets critical, the princes can also lead their troops to fight. However, the possibility is very small, as there are no forces around that require the Ming Dynasty to take real action.

After the imperial meeting ended, Li Yanxian took the initiative to stay.

"Shao Yan, what do you have to say?" Zhu Ming asked.

Li Yanxian carefully arranged his words: "Your Majesty, the people of Shanxi and Shaanxi have a feud with the Western Xia. Among the garrison troops left in Ningxia, about 30% of the generals are from Shanxi and Shaanxi, but 80% of the soldiers and immigrants are from Shanxi and Shaanxi. It is inevitable that they will clash with the remnants of the Western Xia, and the officers cannot suppress this matter too much."

"Especially the Linzhou that caused the trouble this time. It is still under the jurisdiction of Shaanxi, and a large area of ​​Xixia's former land was assigned to Linzhou. Splitting up the Xixia's former land is a long-term plan, but intensified conflicts are inevitable in the short term. What's more, the officials there are all locals. Not only will the soldiers definitely oppress the Xixia survivors, but the Linzhou officials will also definitely seek revenge."

"The officials and soldiers of Linzhou all want to take out their anger on the Xixia survivors. How can the prefect and the generals suppress them? If they dare to suppress them, we will no longer be able to govern officials and lead troops in the future."

"Yao Pingzhong is good at fighting, but he is a fool in governing the army and the people. He offended many friendly generals and officers, and he couldn't suppress the anger of his soldiers. If he was punished for something else, many generals would gloat over his misfortune, and his soldiers would not complain. But we must not punish him too severely for this incident, otherwise the Linzhou garrison will inevitably lose morale. Because from the clerks to the soldiers, they don't think it's wrong to oppress the Xixia survivors."

"How can a political order and a military order resolve a century-old hatred?"

Zhu Ming listened patiently, nodded and said, "You make a lot of sense."

Li Yanxian said modestly: "My wisdom is not even one tenth of your majesty's. I can only help your majesty find out the omissions and fill in the gaps in the details."

"Do you know what Yao Pingzhong and Linzhou prefect Hu Xiang did wrong this time?" Zhu Ming asked.

Li Yanxian was somewhat puzzled: "Didn't they wantonly oppress the remnants of Xixia, forcing the people there to rebel and wreak havoc on the three prefectures?"

Zhu Ming sneered, "It wouldn't cause any trouble if they bullied ordinary Xixia survivors, even if they just beat and killed them. The ones who led the riots were the big herdsmen and landlords. These people were originally the ones that the court had to deal with. Who would pursue them no matter how hard they bullied? Even if the censors and military judges reported these things to the court, I would just keep the memorial in the imperial court and pretend I didn't see it."

Li Yanxian was even more confused: "I am really stupid and don't know where they are wrong. I hope Your Majesty can enlighten me."

Zhu Ming said: "The court has issued military and political orders, and has reserved enough money and grain. The people must be given relief and not too many people must die. What are they doing? They are withholding relief grain and not distributing it. Even if they do, it is only a little bit, and they are forcing the poor people to death. Those poor people are said to be the remnants of the Western Xia, but how many of them are descendants of the Han people who were captured?"

"Their mistake was that they did not carry out the imperial order, or they did not carry out the imperial order thoroughly."

"Let me tell you something that will hurt your heart. If they had followed the imperial court's orders and distributed all the relief grain, they wouldn't have provoked all the lower-class people to revolt. Even if something went wrong, it could have been completely controlled, and we could have taken the opportunity to kill the big landlords and herdsmen. The rest was just oppressing a few Xixia survivors. As long as they didn't kill people at will, would the imperial court care about such a trivial matter? Would I care about such trivial matters when I'm busy with government affairs every day?"

Li Yanxian suddenly realized and said, "I understand."

Li Yanxian did understand.

It was not wrong for the officers, soldiers, and officials of Linzhou to oppress and humiliate the Xixia survivors. At most, their working methods were flawed. Even if they provoked the Xixia survivors to revolt, they could just let it go, after all, the century-old hatred was there.

This kind of ethnic conflict will be rewarded if handled well, but will be a minor offense if handled poorly.

They were wrong in not listening!
They did not listen to the emperor and the court, and the relief grain was not distributed seriously.

Oppressing the remnants of Western Xia is a problem with working methods, but not issuing relief grain is tantamount to deceiving the emperor and disobeying superiors, which means that the court cannot control the government and the army!
The political and military orders have already been issued, how dare you make discounts?
Such an act that goes against the will of the court would have been fine if nothing happened, but now that it has caused a big mess, how can it not be severely punished?
What's more, Yao Pingzhong's operation was too stupid. He deliberately forced the Xixia survivors to rebel, hoping to quell the rebellion and win merit while pleasing the military and civilians. If he could really do a good job, he could reduce the punishment as appropriate, or even offset his merits and demerits.

But this fellow failed to keep an eye on the rebel army, and allowed them to cross provinces and borders, sweeping across the three northern prefectures of Ningxia.

No matter the cause, process, or outcome, it is all unforgivable!
Li Yanxian took his leave and left.

Zhang Tong took a walk outside and suddenly came back to meet the emperor.

Zhu Ming asked with a smile: "What else do you want to say?"

Zhang Tong said, "Your Majesty has his own reasons for doing things. I am just a little confused. Why is the military supervisor not under the Ministry of War or the Privy Council, but instead handed over to the Supervisory Council?"

Zhu Ming sighed, "If there is no one to control the military officers, they will certainly be arrogant. But if the civil officials control them too strictly, they will not be able to lead the troops to fight calmly. I try my best to reconcile and dilute the difference between the civil and military, so that there are military officers in the Ministry of War and civil officials in the Privy Council. But the emphasis is different, the Privy Council is more military, and the Ministry of War is more civil."

"If the Military Supervisory Office is under the Privy Council, how can the Ministry of War suppress the military commanders? Will the military officials of the Privy Council protect the generals? But if it is under the Ministry of War, a hundred years later, the Ministry of War will definitely secretly seize a lot of power from the Privy Council. Handing the Military Supervisory Office over to the Inspectorate and not allowing them to interfere in daily military affairs is already the best solution."

Zhang Tong suddenly realized what was going on and immediately bowed and took his leave.

When Zhang Tong was about to retreat to the palace gate, Zhu Ming shouted, "Who asked you to come here to inquire? Tell them exactly what they said!"

Zhang Tong was so frightened that he didn't even dare to deny it. He bowed and said, "I obey your order."

Zhang Tong was indeed instigated by the Ministry of War and the Privy Council to come to the emperor to test the waters. He was the only one who could ask because Zhang Tong was a cabinet minister representing the military and he needed to fight for the interests of the military.

The vertically managed military court system of the Military Administration Bureau could be under the Ministry of War or the Privy Council. Anyway, the power still belongs to the military, and the Ministry of War and the Privy Council can still fight for it.

The only thing he could do was to hand it over to the Inspectorate, which the military officers could not accept, and even the civil servants in the Ministry of War and the Privy Council could not accept!

……

The next day.

Zhang Guangdao finally breathed a sigh of relief after receiving the specific organization plan of the Military Supervision Bureau.

The military did not have much power taken away from it.

Daily training, marches and battles will still be enforced by military judges in the army, and the Military Justice Department will not interfere with military training and warfare.

What does the Military Supervision Bureau have to take care of?

First, criminal cases involving military personnel, especially those involving civilians.

Second, economic cases involving military personnel, especially embezzlement of military funds and withholding of food and wages.

Third, if a soldier has been enslaved, abused, or exploited for a long time, he can also file a complaint with the Military Supervisory Commissioner. In practice, they probably won’t bother to deal with individual cases, but they will definitely take action against group cases, which is a great achievement for the Military Supervisory Commissioner.

Harassing local people and oppressing the people are of course also within the jurisdiction of the Military Supervision Bureau. But as long as it is not serious, it is estimated that they will turn a blind eye.

As for destroying military marriages, there is no need to make additional laws.

There were laws regarding adultery in ancient times, and generally, if a person was caught committing adultery and killed someone in the act of passion, they would not be guilty.

But if you are not catching an adulterer in the act, you must strictly abide by the law. The sentence is whatever the Ming Dynasty Code says, which is probably one to two years in prison, and the government will not investigate unless the people report it, and the government will not bother to care if the victim chooses to forgive.

If a victim does not kill the adulterer when he catches her having an affair, but later regrets it and kills her somewhere else or another day, then she is definitely guilty of murder!
This legal provision began in the Sui and Tang Dynasties and continued to be used until the Qing Dynasty.

The acts of immersing people in pig cages and parading them on wooden donkeys in movies and TV dramas are definitely illegal and criminal acts, and if they cause death, they are definitely punishable by death.

The formulation of laws in this way is the result of taking into account morality, humanity and the legal system.

It is understandable that you killed someone in the heat of the moment when you caught him cheating. You can be found not guilty. Both morality and humanity are satisfied.

If you then go and kill someone, it will be considered disturbing social order and you must bear the legal consequences. Because you can report it to the police and make the couple go to jail.

After the Sui and Tang Dynasties, there was still the "fortress law". If someone broke into someone else's house without reason at night, the homeowner could directly kill the intruder!
But there are two limiting conditions: one is breaking into a private house at night, and the other is killing the person instantly (killing someone on the spot in a fit of rage).

You can’t kill someone who breaks in during the day, and you can’t kill someone who chases him out of the house either.

The "fortress law" and the "adultery law" are often used interchangeably. What are you doing at night in someone else's house? You say you are going to steal something? The owner of the house thinks you are committing adultery. He will kill you immediately!
……

The chaos in Ningxia has gradually subsided.

The total number of people who died in the rebellion, including the rebel soldiers who were killed, was more than 60,000.

More than 80% of the big landowners and herdsmen were either killed during the suppression of the rebellion or beheaded after being captured. The remaining 20% ​​of the survivors were terrified and angry, but they could only accept the division of their land and pastures.

The first "Grand Military Justice" of the Ming Dynasty, that is, the chief justice of the Supreme Military Court, personally went to Ningxia and Shaanxi with the military chief and military supervisor.

This general was named Fu Yuanheng, and he was the real initiator of following Zhu Ming's administration.

He came from the Fu family, a prominent family in Suzhou, and his grandmother was from the Gong family in Suzhou.

One of Gong's ancestors even died with his family in the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty to defend the Southern Tang Dynasty. Even the two little girls in the family were killed by the Song army that entered the city.

Fu Yuanheng's family property was completely destroyed by Fang La. He hated the tyrants and treacherous ministers at that time, so Zhu Ming was sent to Guizhou. He was the first among the students to follow Mr. Zhu to Guangxi.

But after Zhu Ming started the rebellion, Fu Yuanheng changed his name to Fu Shou and was one of the first to support the uprising.

Lei Guan also served in the government with him. Unfortunately, Lei Guan died young, otherwise he would have definitely become a high-ranking official.

The military supervision system is very important this time.

In addition to the censors of the Supervisory Office, Zhu Ming also recruited personnel from the law offices of various prefectures. Most of them were young people, with an average age of only thirty.

Since they do not interfere in the daily or wartime affairs of the army, they do not need to be proficient in military laws and regulations, but only need to be familiar with the military structure and relevant laws.

Fu Yuanheng is a person who is honest, upright and dutiful.

Well, his handwriting is also very good. He is a calligrapher in history.

After Fu Yuanheng got the new official position, he went straight to Linzhou with his subordinates.

(You think the war scenes written by Lao Wang are ugly? You can go watch Jackie Chan’s new film to break through the bottom line. The war scenes are simply hard to comment on.)
(End of this chapter)