Tibet.

Chapter 1330: Shocking Loophole
Qu Huan led an army of 10,000 and ambushed on the official road 50 miles west of Huichuan City. This was an excellent ambush location. On one side was a cliff with the surging Lu River below, and on the other side were high mountains and dense forests. In the middle was only an official road about several feet wide. This section of the road was more than 20 miles long. Once surrounded, it would be difficult to escape.

Three thousand Tibetan soldiers escaped from Huichuan City and fled all the way westward. At noon, the tired and hungry Tibetan soldiers finally appeared on this official road.

Three thousand soldiers were running hard when they suddenly heard a loud noise behind them. They saw several big trees fall down, blocking the official road.

Before they could react, a clapper sounded on the mountain, and suddenly thousands of arrows were fired. The powerful crossbows pierced the leather armor of the Tibetan soldiers. There were screams on the official road, and Tibetan soldiers fell to the ground one after another. Ten thousand arrows against three thousand soldiers, it was a completely overwhelming massacre.

After only two rounds of arrows, only a few hundred of the original 3,000 troops were still running, and most of them were shot and injured.

The third round of tens of thousands of arrows were shot intensively at the hundreds of people who were running. After the last scream, the official road became quiet, with only the groans of pain left.

Qu Huan waved his hand, and more than a thousand Tang soldiers rushed down, stabbing to death all the injured but not dead Tibetan soldiers with spears, and more than three thousand corpses were thrown into the rolling Lu River.

Han Qiu's 5,000 troops not only killed 2,000 Nanzhao soldiers stationed on the banks of the Lu River, but also captured the extremely important iron chain bridge, thus preserving the important passage for the main force of the Tang army to enter the heartland of Nanzhao.

But Li Sheng was not in a hurry to go south. His army was stationed in Huichuan City, patiently waiting for the arrival of the medicine.

In Chang'an, the small-scale adjustment of the Political Affairs Hall was completed. Wei Jiansu remained in office as the Right Prime Minister and the Minister of the Central Secretariat for another term, and Zhang Li and other assistant prime ministers also continued to serve, except for Li Mi. Li Mi was appointed as the Inspector of Zhejiang East and Fujian Provinces and the Governor of Fuzhou, and the former Inspector of Fujian Province, Zhang Ping, was appointed as the Inspector of Lingnan Province and the Governor of Guangzhou.

Liu Yan took office as the Minister of Personnel, the Minister of Revenue was succeeded by the Minister of Works Xiao Hua, and the Minister of Rites Zhang Hao was changed to the Minister of the Imperial Household, in charge of the White Tiger Hall.

Pei Zunqing, the Minister of Punishments, was transferred to be the Minister of Rites. Dugu Lie and Duan Xueshi both continued to hold their original positions. The Imperial Censor Yan Zhenqing became the Prime Minister and was appointed as the Minister of Punishments.

With the stabilization of the Political Affairs Hall, the political situation also quickly stabilized.

In March, the annual imperial examination is about to begin. This year's imperial examination is unprecedented. Nearly 100,000 scholars gathered in Chang'an to compete for 120 imperial examination places, including 60 for Jinshi, 40 for Mingjing, and 20 for Sushi.

The mathematics subject here is a bit special. One needs to study in the Institute of Technology for five years with salary as a ninth-rank engineer. After five years, one can be directly promoted to the eighth-rank upper level, which is better than the Jinshi and Mingjing.

The officials awarded in the Jinshi examination were of the upper ninth rank, while those in the Mingjing examination were of the lower ninth rank. Five years later, the officials in the Jinshi examination were promoted one level to the lower eighth rank, while the officials in the Mingjing examination were promoted one level to the upper ninth rank.

They are all lower than the eighth rank for academic officials.

Of course, in actual practice, promotions are not done in such a step-by-step manner. Most people will have the opportunity to leap directly from the eighth rank to the seventh rank. Otherwise, there are four levels above and below for each level. How long will it take to get there?

Some people who have outstanding political achievements or strong backing will be promoted several levels and become governors after serving as officials for ten years.

There were two days left before the imperial examination. At the request of Minister of Rites Pei Zunqing, Li Ye urgently convened a meeting of the Council of State.

In the round hall, Pei Zunqing stood up and said to Emperor Li Ye: "Your Majesty, the number of candidates for the imperial examination this year is 104,500. Chang'an can no longer accommodate them, so we have to divert them to other counties. However, the admission of 120 people was decided when there were 20,000 or 30,000 candidates. It was about one person for every 200 people. Now that the number has exceeded 100,000, using 120 places is really too few. Almost 1,000 people are competing for one place."

Li Ye nodded and said to Liu Yan: "The key is how many places can the Ministry of Personnel provide?"

Liu Yan smiled bitterly and said, "Now all the princes' and princesses' palaces have been abolished, and the Jiedufu has been changed to a Dudufu. A large number of officials will be transferred, and the imperial examination will not be held for several years. If we want to add more officials now, we can only increase the source of income!"

"If it's open source, does the Prime Minister have any direction?" Li Ye turned around and asked Wei Jiansu.

Wei Jiansu nodded, "It's what Your Majesty and I talked about last time, the new counties in Liaodong, education and agriculture, these three directions of opening up new sources of income." Li Ye pondered for a moment and said, "In addition to these three directions of opening up new sources of income, I have always had an idea to expand the court's control over the county level. Now each county has four levels of officials, namely officials, clerks, messengers and servants, and the court only controls the county officials up to the level of magistrate, secretary, lieutenant and bookkeeper. At the level of clerks, the court is completely out of control, which means the loss of power.

I am considering whether to classify the rank of Li as a lower rank from the ninth rank and bring it under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Personnel. What do you think? "

The high-ranking officials present were all shrewd men. They understood immediately that the emperor wanted to kill two birds with one stone: one was to increase the number of officials, and the other was to seize power.

From the Han Dynasty to the present, officials at the county level have been controlled by local wealthy families, which also shows the influence of local wealthy families on county-level power.

It's not that successive dynasties did not want to intervene, but the distance was too far and the imperial court was unable to reach them. It would also increase the financial burden of the imperial court, so the imperial court considered it over and over again and did not delegate power to lower levels.

But the emperor had obviously considered this a long time ago.

Pei Zunqing was the first to object. "Your Majesty, the promotion of county officials involves too much, and it concerns the interests of countless local tyrants. If your Majesty damages the interests of local tyrants, it will inevitably lead to confrontation, resulting in many of our measures being unable to be truly implemented. I suggest that your Majesty consider it carefully."

Although it was Yan Zhenqing's first time to attend a military and political meeting, he was not afraid of the stage. He immediately said: "It is a good thing that your majesty has this idea. Now many measures of the court are difficult to implement, or they will change their nature after being implemented. The fundamental reason is that the court's control over the county is a little weak.

For example, there is a clause in the household tax determination that states that if the household tax has been paid, then the land tax can be exempted. This led to many powerful landlords trying to evade the land tax by asking the county government to determine that they had only one son in their family and paying a symbolic household tax of a few strings of coins, while still evading the land tax of dozens or even hundreds of strings of coins.

Why could they do this? Because the county officials who collected the household tax were recommended by them. These county officials were not afraid of being dismissed. If one was dismissed, the powerful landlords would recommend another one.

The county magistrate can shift the blame to his subordinate county clerks, who will then turn a blind eye and pretend to be ignorant of the matter. How much loss will this bring to the court?

Therefore, the power to appoint and dismiss county officials must be in the hands of the imperial court, so that county officials will not dare to falsify information so recklessly. "

Li Ye frowned, "What is Minister Yan talking about?"

Yan Zhenqing bowed and said, "It's a matter of Hedong Road. Someone reported it before. The Censorate is still investigating and verifying it. I guess there will be an investigation report to Your Majesty soon!"

Li Ye nodded, "Everyone keep talking!"

Xiao Hua, the Minister of Finance, said, "Your Majesty, there are 1,500 counties in the Tang Dynasty. Even if we promote four clerks to official positions in each county, that would mean an additional 6,000 officials. Each person would receive a monthly salary of five strings of cash, which would be 30,000 strings of cash a month, or less than 400,000 strings of cash a year. From a financial perspective, the court can afford it, but the question is, what should we do with the current clerks?"

Wei Jiansu waved his hand and said, "This is not a big problem. We can do it step by step. First, retire the older officials, and then stop adding new ones. Use the imperial examination scholars to fill the gap. But the focus is not here. The focus is that there will definitely be conflicts with local tyrants. If Your Highness insists on doing it, I think we can try it out for one year in Guanzhong, and promote the lower ninth rank to the middle ninth rank, and promote the two first-level officials to the lower ninth rank.

Then we can add a new academic director and agricultural director, also from the lower ninth rank, so that each county will have four additional quotas. If we also promote the assistant teachers of the provincial school to the lower ninth rank, and the assistant teachers of the county school to the first-level official, then we can solve the problem of the increase in the number of places for the imperial examination this year."

Wei Jiansu was still steady. Li Ye agreed with Wei Jiansu's idea. He nodded and asked Liu Yan, "How many more places can be added according to Wei Xiangguo's idea?"

Liu Yan thought for a moment and said, "Your Majesty, if it is just a pilot project in Guanzhong, adding two ninth-rank official positions, namely, the academic director and the agricultural director, will guarantee about 80 new positions. However, the promotion of the first-level clerks will involve the current officials, so I am not sure how many positions there will be."

Li Ye made the final decision and said, "We will not consider the first-level official for the time being. We will only confirm the academic and agricultural positions. This year, the total number of admissions is 200, and the additional 80 will all be listed as Mingjing subjects."

(End of this chapter)