Tibet.

Chapter 1301 Moving to a new home
The next morning, Li Ye and his family got on more than 20 horse-drawn carriages, followed by hundreds of female guards and maids, and moved to the Daming Palace in a mighty procession. They walked along the aisles along the city walls and basically did not disturb the neighbors.

Their luggage and belongings had been moved there a few days in advance.

Xingqing Palace would not be empty in the future, and Li Ye planned to give it to his father Li Dai and mother Pei Sanniang to live in.

There were a total of 2,500 palace maids in the Daming Palace and Taiji Palace, 2,000 of which were in the Daming Palace and 500 in the Taiji Palace. The Taiji Palace was mainly inhabited by homeless old concubines, with a total of more than 70 people. The old concubines also received regular pay, and many of them also had shops, with 500 palace maids serving them.

There were also thousands of elderly palace maids with white hair living in the Taiji Palace. They also had no home to go. Li Ye treated them well and allowed them to live in the Ye Ting Palace for their retirement. Each of them was given two dou of rice, one jin of salt, and five hundred coins per month.

In addition, there were more than 300 eunuchs, who mainly did miscellaneous work.

All the palace maids and eunuchs in the Daming Palace were newcomers who entered the palace after the 14th year of Tianbao, and most of them were from Luoyang. This ensured that Yang Yuhuan no longer had to wear a mask or worry about being recognized by anyone, and could live freely.

Li Ye carried out a major reform on the palace maids and eunuchs half a year ago. After all, palace maids and eunuchs were actually a kind of slaves. Once they entered the palace, they were deep in the sea, and it would take them forever to get out.

Li Ye implemented three reforms on these palace maids. First, there was a time limit for entering the palace. They had to leave the palace and go home to get married before the age of 20. Unmarried palace maids in their thirties or forties were not allowed to appear. Even if some experienced palace maids were needed to manage the affairs, they would be rehired after they got married.

The second is the contract system. The palace maids, like the maids in wealthy families, signed contracts when they entered the palace, received daily wages, and returned home after the contract expired.

The third is to ban eunuchs. Good family sons are no longer allowed to be castrated to become eunuchs.
These three regulations have caused a lot of controversy. There are supporters and opponents. It is also very interesting to say that the opponents are mainly royal family members and powerful people, who believe that this will undermine the royal dignity.

But most of the supporters were court officials, who were more pragmatic. During the Tianbao period, the expenditure of the imperial palace was second only to military expenditure. The huge amount each year made the court overwhelmed, but no one dared to speak out.

Emperor Minghuang of Tang had more than 40,000 palace maids and hundreds of concubines. They needed food, clothing, housing, and money for cosmetics, travel, lamp oil, visiting relatives, delicacies from all over the country, vegetables and fruits of the four seasons, support for the opera garden and the music school, major repairs of the imperial palace, daily maintenance, etc., as well as monthly allowances for concubines and palace maids.

What's even worse is that the emperor often gave out lavish rewards, held various banquets and so on, with annual expenditures reaching millions of strings of cash. The Tang Dynasty's finances were basically dragged down by Li Longji's extravagance and wastefulness.

So after Li Ye came to power, he learned his lesson and implemented a recruitment system for palace maids. Palace maids were hired servants and were paid 100 wen a day, which was only three strings of coins a month. There were 2,500 palace maids, and that was 7,500 strings of coins a month. The most they received were benefits such as food and clothing, nothing else.

In a year, the annual expenditure of the imperial palace was only a few hundred thousand or less than 200,000 strings of cash. Compared with the millions of strings of cash spent by Emperor Xuanzong of Tang Dynasty, there was a huge gap.

Even though Suzong was very frugal, he still had to spend millions of strings of cash every year, mainly to support a large number of people.

When it came to Li Ye, he stopped supporting them and everyone worked for wages. The top-level system changed, and the bottomless pit of the palace expenses became a shallow pool. How could the court not welcome it?
There was also an order to ban eunuchs. Li Ye and the imperial court hit it off. Having learned the bitter lesson of the eunuch party's monopoly of power, they banned eunuchs at the root. The current eunuchs can continue to be used, but there will be no new ones.

The main purpose of recruiting eunuchs was to do the heavy work that women could not do, but in fact, strong women could also be recruited to do the work. The strong women in the Tang Dynasty were all strong and powerful, and ordinary men could not beat them at all.

Therefore, among the two thousand palace maids in the Daming Palace, there were five hundred strong women. They were proficient in everything, such as cooking, lifting heavy objects, and doing rough work.

As for the security of the Daming Palace, the inner guards are responsible for the periphery, and there are 500 female guards with high martial arts skills inside the palace. Especially in the residential area of ​​Longshouyuan, there are 300 female guards, and there is also a Gongsun Da Niang in charge. She and her ten disciples specialize in dealing with top masters.

In the past, the security of the Daming Palace was the responsibility of the guards. Nearly 10,000 guards were recruited, and the monthly salary and welfare expenses were 70,000 to 80,000 strings of cash. In fact, it was meaningless. The guards had nothing to do every day. They just patrolled and stood guard. If an assassin really came, they would be of no use at all.

Therefore, by laying off the guards, millions of strings of cash could be saved every year.

There are also Li Ye's 10,000 personal cavalry guards, who have now been reorganized into the Longwu Army, responsible for the security of the imperial city.

The biggest advantage of the top-level system design is that Li Ye's descendants dare not make any changes. At most they can make some minor changes, such as increasing the number of people and increasing wages, but that's all.

The chief steward of the Inner Palace is Zhao Baozhong, an old eunuch. He was previously the chief steward of Xingqing Palace and now he has come here to become the chief steward of the Inner Palace, but he is mainly responsible for Taiji Palace.

On the other side of the Daming Palace is the deputy chief steward, Aunt Wu. She is Li Ye's current inner palace housekeeper. Dugu Mingyue likes her very much and insists on taking her away, so Li Ye simply appoints her as the deputy chief steward of the inner palace.

The Daming Palace covers a large area, and the residential area of ​​the harem is mainly concentrated on Longshouyuan in the southeast of Taiye Lake. The palace complex here covers an area of ​​several hundred acres and is mainly composed of six palace areas, namely Penglai Palace, Zichen Palace, Lingqi Palace, Yutang Palace, Xuanwei Palace, and Greenhouse Palace. Each palace is a group of buildings.

The Purple Palace here is the emperor's side palace, where his imperial study is located, also known as the inner court. The emperor handles government affairs, summons important ministers to discuss military and national affairs, and takes a rest at noon, all in the Purple Palace.

To the north of the Zichen Hall is the Queen's Penglai Hall, where the Emperor's inner study is also located.

If a minister needed to see the emperor at night, he could not go through the main gate, but had to come in from the Youyintai Gate on the west, pass through the Hanlin Academy and go to the Linde Hall.

The Linde Hall is where the emperor handles government affairs and receives ministers at night. There is also a study there, which is the emperor's outer study.

The other four palace areas are where the concubines live.

Yang Yuhuan and Qingyu have a good relationship, and they live in the Bathhouse Palace. Shen Li and Dugu Taiwei live in the Lingqi Palace. There is also Shen Zhenzhu, who is relatively independent. She lives in the Greenhouse Palace with her son and Mu Da Niang.

Shen Zhenzhu was conferred the title of Liangyuan, but she no longer cared about her status and position. She just wanted a son and wanted to find a place to raise him in peace and quiet.

Li Ye brought her to the Daming Palace mainly because he didn't want his son to become an illegitimate child.

Mu Da Niang was content with her circumstances. As long as she had a place to chant Buddha's name, she would live anywhere. Therefore, not far from the Greenhouse Hall was Mingde Temple, a nunnery that mainly worshipped Guanyin Bodhisattva. This made Mu Da Niang very happy. Li Ye moved to Daming Palace with his family. He did not rest. His family members went to clean up their own residences.

He returned to his own court room, which was in the Purple Palace, but not in the imperial study of Li Longji and Li Heng, but in a courtyard outside.

He returned to the court room and sat down. Du You bowed and said, "Prime Minister Wei just said he wanted to see you for something important."

Li Ye nodded, "Summon him to see me!"

Li Ye took a sip of hot tea and flipped through the memorials on the table. One of them caught his interest.

The Ministry of Works submitted a memorial, announcing the discovery of An Lushan’s iron mines and smelting sites in Pingzhou.

Li Ye looked carefully at the map attached to the memorial, and it was indeed Qian'an in later generations. Ore ships carrying iron ore went south along the Luanshui River to Qianjin Yecheng for smelting.

An Lushan's army was very well-equipped. His most elite Diaoluohe cavalry were all equipped with iron helmets and armor, and even their horses were covered in iron armor.

Part of his weapons were supplied by the imperial court, and part were made by himself. More importantly, he mainly relied on mining and smelting to support his army, and sold them to various places in Hebei, making huge profits.

In the past, the Goguryeo people specialized in mining and smelting iron for him.

Pingzhou is Tangshan in later generations, a famous steel city, rich in coal and iron, with a long history. The Qian'an Iron Mine in particular is shallowly buried, high-quality, large reserves, and easy to mine, making it one of the four major iron mines in the country.

What the Ministry of Industry meant was that they wanted to mine the Qian'an Iron Mine in large quantities. Coal was also produced there, so it would be convenient to use the coal directly to smelt iron.

The use of coal for iron smelting was not fully promoted until the Song Dynasty. In the Tang Dynasty, part of the smelting was done with coal, but most of it was done with firewood. However, the consumption of firewood was too high. It took 8,000 kilograms of wood to smelt 1,000 kilograms of pig iron, so deforestation was very serious in the Tang Dynasty.

After Li Ye came to power, he vigorously promoted three transformations: one was the transformation from wood to iron, one was the transformation from wood fuel to coal fuel, and the other was the transformation from hemp to cotton.

At this time, Li Ye thought of a problem. He was going to go to Tianzhu to seize iron ore in two years. He would definitely refine the iron into pig iron locally before transporting it away, but was there coal in Tianzhu?
There seem to be quite a few, and they are all open-pit coal mines, but the quality is relatively poor. However, you can give it a try. If it doesn’t work, you can transport the ore to Southeast Asia for smelting. There are high-quality coal mines on the island of Sumatra.

However, there is an ancient saying, 'One does not sell firewood within a hundred miles, and does not sell grain within a thousand miles.'

What this means is that carrying firewood to sell it a hundred miles away, or transporting grain to sell it a thousand miles away, the meager profit earned is not even enough to cover the freight, which is not worth it.

Therefore, transporting the iron ore to Southeast Asia for smelting is indeed not worth the effort. We still have to find a way to smelt it locally in India.

At this time, the official at the door reported, "Prime Minister Wei is here!"

"Invite him in!"

Li Ye casually drew a circle on the memorial from the Ministry of Works to indicate his approval.

After the memorial was placed in the basket, it would take effect only after Du You, the military officer in charge of the record, stamped it with the seal of the regent.

At this time, Wei Jiansu hurried in and bowed, "Greetings, Your Highness!"

"Prime Minister, please take a seat!"

Wei Jiansu sat down and said with a smile: "Your Highness, you are moving into a new house today. How do you feel?"

Li Ye smiled and waved his hands, "I haven't felt it yet, I guess it's about the same! There's no difference from Xingqing Palace."

"With more people, there will probably be more rules."

"This is true!"

"In addition, all of us officials hope that Your Highness will take more concubines. Your Highness's lineage is too weak, which is not good for the country!"

Li Ye nodded, "Let's take our time! There's no rush."

Wei Jiansu took out a memorial and handed it to Li Ye, saying with a smile: "These are the six reign titles drafted by the Political Affairs Hall. The final reign title will be decided by Your Highness."

Of course, the reign title has deep meaning. For example, Wu Zetian's reign title changed frequently, which actually represented different meanings.

Li Ye had previously expressed his intention to the Council of State, "Auspiciousness and Newness, Revitalization of the Country", and the reign title would be decided based on this meaning.

Li Ye opened the memorial and took a look. There were five alternative reign titles, Jiaqing, Jiaxing, Renhe, Tianxing and Longqing. He immediately chose "Jiaxing". Although it was a place name, it was also his most ideal reign title.

(End of this chapter)