Great Zhou Empire: Kill Zhao Kuangyin at the beginning

Chapter 479 Military Cabinet (Special thanks to the book friend Guangming Shendeng for the 2 monthly tickets!)

Chai Zongxun said:

"In recognition of the achievements and talents of these generals, I hereby promote Yang Yanzhao to be the Grand Commander of the Fourth Corps of the Longxiang Army, Cao Can to be the Grand Commander of the Sixth Corps, and Lin Wenshan to be the Grand Commander of the Eighth Corps."

Upon hearing this, Cao Bin and Lin Renzhao were overjoyed and expressed their gratitude. Cao Can and Lin Wenshan were their respective eldest sons, and both passed the imperial examinations and became military scholars between the 15th and 20th years of Kaixi.

After more than ten years of experience in the Longxiong Army, he has been promoted to army commander.

Yang Yanzhao was the eldest son of Yang Ye. He made many great contributions when Chai Zongxun conquered Gaochang and Khotan the year before.

However, Yang Ye had been dismissed from his post and was living at home, and had not attended court, so he did not know the good news.

The emperor appointed the sons of the three generals to take over the three vacant corps of the Longxiang Army and only adjusted the corps under their command. This shows that Chai Zongxun recognized and valued the historical achievements of the three families.

Chai Zongxun continued:
"Since ancient times, civil officials can stabilize a country, and military officials can keep it safe. The civil officials and military commanders of my Great Zhou are all resourceful and good at fighting.

Today, our Great Zhou has a vast territory, a large population, and increasingly complex and professional government affairs. I have refined the many suggestions of the civil officials years ago. In order to make our Great Zhou have both civil and military officials and work together for the country, after many months of deliberation, I have decided to establish a "Military Cabinet" to divide the court affairs into two categories, civil and military, and assign specific people to be in charge of them.

The "Military Cabinet" imitates the cabinet system and is composed of seven military generals with outstanding merits. Each term of office is up to ten years. All major military expeditions of the empire are decided by the "Military Cabinet" and are responsible to the emperor.

Military generals only need to obey the court's orders to mobilize troops and are not allowed to interfere in any internal affairs; and civil officials are not allowed to interfere in or criticize the military's combat operations.

It is true that “civilians have no control over the military, and military officials have no control over politics.”

When all the ministers in the Chuigong Hall heard this, the military generals were all overjoyed, and the civil officials saw that Chai Zongxun not only did not weaken the military power of the generals, but instead established a system of separation of civil and military powers, the "Military Cabinet."

Many civil officials came out to argue, but last year, when the veteran generals with outstanding achievements had not yet returned to the capital, Emperor Chai Zongxun was able to suppress the civil officials' plan to limit the power of the military generals. At this moment, the ten commanders of the Western Expedition had all returned to the capital, and astute civil officials such as Li Hang and Kou Zhun all knew that times had changed and it was useless to speak out against it now.

Many military generals who returned to the capital came out to refute the suggestion, and they were furious that the civil officials had taken every opportunity to stir up trouble in front of the Emperor Chai Zongxun when they were away on military campaigns in recent years.

Therefore, at the morning court session that day, the matter of the "Military Cabinet" was decided on the spot.

After being recommended by civil and military officials in the Chuigong Palace and approved by Emperor Chai Zongxun, the seven members of the first "Military Cabinet" were determined:

The chief minister was the highly respected Huyan Zan, the second chief minister was Jing Sheng, and the cabinet members were Zhe Yuxun, Zhang Ning, Guan Lin, Cao Guangshi, and Ma Zhijie.

After becoming a member of the military cabinet, a military general would be stationed in Bian Jing permanently and would become the main minister in the court who would safeguard the interests of the military generals and discuss domestic and foreign military affairs with the emperor.

The position of Grand Commander of the Longxiang Army Corps that they previously held was held by the second generation of Great Zhou generals who were in their prime, such as the Hu family generals, the Zhe family generals, the Yang family generals, the Zhang family generals, the Gao family generals, and so on.

At the beginning of May in the 34th year of Kaixi, the cabinet reported that all the arrangements for the Fengshan ceremony at Mount Tai had been completed, and earnestly requested Chai Zongxun to set off for the Fengshan ceremony at Mount Tai.

Seeing that the wars against the Star Religion in West Asia and Fuso were going smoothly and there was no trouble at home, Chai Zongxun approved the request of his ministers and, on May 12, led the imperial family, princes, ministers, and envoys from vassal states stationed in Beijing, and set out from Bian Jing to Mount Tai.

Li Hang and Wang Dan were appointed as inspectors of Fengshan, and 2,000 eunuchs, 5,000 palace maids, 100,000 imperial guards, and 20,000 soldiers from the Wude Division and Longxiang Guard were mobilized to escort the emperor. Chai Zongxun led the people to drive slowly along the national and state roads, traveling only a hundred miles a day, sightseeing and inspecting the people's sentiments.

The imperial procession to Mount Tai had more than ten thousand horse-drawn carriages, stretching for more than twenty miles.

During the more than 30 years of Kaixi's prosperous period, the social economy of the Great Zhou Dynasty achieved great development and prosperity.

After leaving Bian Jing, passing through Caozhou, Jizhou, Yanzhou, Zibo and other places, one can see that the suburbs are almost entirely planted with fertile fields, and are dotted with water conservancy facilities built by the government over the years by hiring the people.

Among them, grain crops account for about 70% of the land, and another 30% are vegetables with higher market prices, which villagers sell to earn money.

As for the vegetables that the villagers eat at home, they are all grown in a few plots in their own yards, and the family cannot finish them on a daily basis.

In every county that Chai Zongxun randomly inspected along the way, there were considerable numbers of workshops and shops, each with its own specialty products, while meat, clothing, wine, sugar making, etc. were common industries.

After traveling for more than a month, they arrived at the foot of Mount Tai on June 6, the 34th year of Kaixi.

After resting for a night in the temporary residence of Mount Tai, Chai Zongxun led the imperial family and civil and military officials to climb Mount Tai in the early morning of June 7.

In order to welcome the emperor's Fengshan ceremony at Mount Tai, the Ministry of Works recruited 3 Taishan laborers at the beginning of the year. It took three months to dig more than stone steps on Mount Tai and build two huge royal villas between the mountain roads. Each laborer received a monthly salary of taels.

During the three-month road construction period alone, Chai Zongxun's court distributed 2.7 million taels of silver to the local people in Mount Tai in the form of salaries, which greatly boosted the local economy.

In order to show respect to heaven and earth, everyone, including the emperor, had to climb the mountain on foot.

In the past, Emperor Guangwu of the Han Dynasty offered sacrifices to the gods on Mount Tai. At the age of over 60, he led the imperial family and ministers to climb the mountain on foot. Within half a year after the completion of the ceremony and their return to Luoyang, several ministers died, and even Emperor Liu Xiu died within a year.

Chai Zongxun was afraid that the imperial family and princes and ministers would be too tired from climbing the mountain, so on the first day of climbing, at dusk, he led his entourage to stay in the royal villa beside the mountain road.

Empress Dowager Fu sat in the courtyard to rest for a while. After taking a few sips of freshly brewed tea, she looked at the brand new mountain road that stretched all the way up. It was dozens of miles long and was built by chiseling the mountain and splitting trees along the terrain. It was indeed a huge project.

Empress Dowager Fu said: "Your Majesty is a man of both literary and military virtues, and his achievements are unparalleled in the history of China and even the world.

But my mother, the Queen Mother, has seen that the newly built mountain trail on Mount Tai is a huge project and must have consumed a lot of manpower.

My son now has an empire that stretches across the world, and he should always be mindful of the people's strength, which is the key to long-term stability of the country, and should think about the mistakes of Emperor Yang of Sui who abused the people's strength."

Chai Zongxun smiled and said, "Mother, don't worry!
As soon as I ascended the throne, I formulated the policy of "abolishing corvée labor and hiring the common people to build the roads with wages." The construction of these mountain roads would not only not waste the people's labor, but would increase the income of the local people.

I, as your son, will transfer the money collected from the national treasury to the hands of the people by hiring them to work, thereby boosting the local economy.

Mother, for example, this Taishan Mountain Road project alone has turned 2.7 million taels of silver into income for the local people."

(End of this chapter)