Late Tang

(Thank you Mengmengmengmengmeng for your reward, thank you!)

In the sixth year of Qianfu, the fifteenth day of the first lunar month.

This day is the Shangyuan Festival, one of the most grand and lively festivals in the Tang Dynasty.Every year on this day, the government and the people of the Tang Dynasty have a three-day holiday. From Chang'an to all places, the prohibition of Jin Wu's supper is lifted to facilitate the people to enjoy the lanterns, which is called night release.

The Northeast Daxingtai also issued an order early, and this year's Shangyuan Festival is a three-day holiday.

During these rare three nights, everyone from civil servants and generals to traffickers and pawns went out to enjoy the lanterns.From Dengzhou to Liaodong, all the cities in the Northeast Road were full of traffic, crowded with people, and very lively.

All kinds of lanterns have been on sale early on. For this reason, Li Rang, Minister of the Ministry of Household Affairs, specially allocated [-] guan to decorate the lanterns of Liaodong City, Dengzhou City and other cities during these three days. The festival is called the atmosphere.

So even though it has been snowing heavily since the morning, there is still an endless stream of people coming and going on the streets of Liaodong City.The parents also let the children wear new clothes, build snowmen on the side of the street, shout and chase, and do not stop them.

Even the patrolling soldiers who walked by in neat formations from time to time were all wearing bright red cotton robes today, looking mighty and handsome.

But Li Jing, who had just returned to Liaodong City, couldn't enjoy all of this.

Since the establishment of Daxingtai, Northeast Road, Li Jing promoted Tongtong, the original military governor of the six towns, to Daxing Taichung, and the position of the commander in chief of the six towns was vacated.

Li Jing has not appointed a new commander in chief of the six towns for a long time, but the civil servants and generals below have been staring at him.Now, after a blink of an eye, the small-scale war against Youzhou has ended.At this point, Li Jing no longer had any reason to delay this matter.

In the Yamen of Daxingtai, Cui Yunqing's eyes rested on a chime bell on the table in the north of the hall. The bell looked like a handsome horse carved in jade with one foot on a flying swallow.The shell of the whole clock is carved with gold and jade, and the clock face is a jade plate, marking twelve hours.Below is a jade pendulum, swinging back and forth non-stop.

The sound of "tick tick tick" kept ringing all the time.

This self-sounding clock belongs to the luxury type, and was donated to Daxingtai by the self-sounding clock factory.Cui Yunqing is very clear that the Chime Bell Factory is actually Li Jing's property, but the income is also allocated to Daxingtai's finances, which can be regarded as Li Jing's internal treasury, but the money in the internal treasury is also handed over to Li Rang for use. .

This self-ringing clock can be regarded as the most popular commodity in the Northeast Province, and it has a price but no market.In Chang'an, the asking price is [-] guan, while in Silla, Bohai, and Japan, it is [-] guan.And export to Taixi merchants such as Dashi and Daqin, it is at least [-] guan.And this is only the luxury type. The more luxurious collection type and collection type are at least [-] in the country, and the sales overseas are as high as [-].

The Ziming Bell Factory is located in Liaodong City. Although a large number of craftsmen and workers have been recruited, the current output is still extremely low, but even so.After the start of production, within half a year of last year, the Chime Bell Factory has sold 900 Chime Clocks, achieving sales of more than 100 million bells, creating more than 600 million tax revenues from Daxingtai, and the Chime Bell Factory has also achieved a profit of more than [-] million bells. It is truly a huge mountain of gold.

Moreover, since the chime clock is a luxury item, a luxury tax has to be levied, and it is mainly sold overseas. The newly established Customs Department in Daxingtai has to collect a large amount of customs duties.Moreover, although this clock is expensive, the money it earns is from the rich, and it does not affect ordinary people in the slightest.

"Dang!" When half an hour came, Cui Yunqing was startled when the chime bell rang on time. Up to now, he still felt that the chime clock chimed once every half hour, and the sound was still so loud.

He glanced at Li Jing and found that Li Jing was sitting there, waiting for their opinions.

"Brother Xingxu, I don't know what your opinion is on this?" Cui Yunqing didn't speak first, but pushed Li Zhen's head first, letting him speak first.

It's not that he is tactful, but this time Li Jing summoned Zuo Pushe, Zuo Cheng and the six ministers to discuss the matter, and the matter to be discussed was too important.There was no news at all beforehand, but when they came in, each of them suddenly sent out a brochure, which was actually written about the changes to the current ranks of officials in Daxingtai.

According to the above, the changes are too big this time. First of all, the post of Jiedushi of the Six Towns that everyone is staring at at the moment will be abolished.

The abolition of the Jiedushi system that has been in place for more than a hundred years is not the whole thing. What is mentioned in this booklet is definitely to comprehensively reform the existing official and military systems.This reform is so great that Cui Yunqing didn't know whether it was Li Jing's intention or not.Therefore, he did not immediately approve or disapprove.

Today, Li Jing was wearing a stiff winged head, a purple gown, a jade belt around his waist, and a pair of tall calfskin wool boots, sitting on a chair.

As soon as Li Zhen received this note, he knew at a glance that this unsigned note must have been written by the king of the county.He just scanned it hastily, and he already understood that the original intention of this note was to cut and decentralize power, just like the power cutting and decentralizing the governor in the past, this time the power was distributed to Jiedushi.

In this notebook, Li Jing's reform plan is clearly written, the Jiedushi system will be abolished, and provinces will be established above the states.

Today's Dongbei Province belongs to Xingshangshu Province, but it is Daxingtai in terms of grade.But according to this brochure, it seems that a small province will be established.However, it is different from the previous Xingtai system. The new provincial system replaces the original Jiedushi, abolishes Jiedushi, but does not set Xingtai Shangshuling.

Instead, it is necessary to divide the power of the Jiedushi, who was in charge of the affairs of a town, into three, just like the original governor of the state, and change it to governor, defense envoy, and inspector. The same is true for this province.

The new province will have a governor in charge of civil administration, an admiral in charge of justice, and a governor in charge of a province's military.

The Northeast Province will abolish and merge the existing states, and finally set up [-] states and [-] counties.

The original six towns will be changed to Five Elements Province.

The five provinces are Liaodong Province, Liaoxi Province, Shandong Province, Beiping Province, and Andong Province.

The current Ziqing Town and Denglai Town merged into one, becoming a new Shandong Province, which governs the five prefectures of Zizhou, Qingzhou, Dengzhou, Laizhou, and Qizhou.

The land of Liaodong will be bounded by the Liaohe River. The east of the Liaohe River, the north of the Yalu River, and the south of Fuyu on the Bohai Sea, including the Liaodong Peninsula, will be classified as the Liaodong Province.After the merger of prefectures and counties in Liaodong Province, it has jurisdiction over seven prefectures: Jinzhou, Jianzhou, Anzhou, Liaozhou, Tiezhou, Xizhou, and Shenzhou.

The west of the Liaohe River, the south of the Xiliao River, the east of the Tuhe River, the north of Yanshan Mountain, the hills of Western Liaoning and the eastern part of the Khitan Grassland will be designated as the western province of Liaoning.Including Yingzhou, Jinzhou, Ningzhou, Fuzhou, Fuzhou, Kezhou, and Panzhou.

Andong Province is east of the Wugu River and south of the Yalu River, including Xiuzhou at the mouth of the Yalu River in the Liaodong Peninsula, which was designated as Andong Province.Including Qingzhou, Hengzhou, Danzhou, Hezhou, and Xianzhou, among which Hezhou and Xianzhou were both lands ceded from Bohai State later.

Beiping Province is the area around Yanshan Mountain, east of Taihang, and west of Liaohai.Including Pingzhou, Jizhou, Tanzhou, and the newly laid Shunzhou and Jingzhou.

The original land of Liaodong was merged and abolished several states.

There is not much difference between the six towns and the five provinces. Basically, the territory of each province has expanded a little.

However, the Jiedushi who was originally in charge of a town was abolished, and changed to three governors to share the power of a province.

It can be seen that the core of the restructuring is decentralization.

In the past, the prefect had a lot of power, but since the restructuring, the prefect has only been in charge of civil affairs, not even judicial power, let alone military power.

However, the defense envoys of the states did not actually have any real power. After Li Zhen saw the reform of the province, he began to focus on the position of the governor in charge of a province's military.The defense envoy of the state does not have real power in the army, so does the governor have real power in the army?

If the governor still actually controls the military power of a province, then this reform will not change much.

Li Zhen continued to turn back, and immediately saw that there was indeed what he guessed.

After the abolition of the Jiedushi and the establishment of three governors in the province, the reform of the military system has deepened this time.

Newly established the Governor's Mansion of the Five Armies and the Staff Council, which together with the Ministry of War are in charge of military and political affairs.

But these three departments are different. According to the booklet, after the restructuring, Daxingtai will set up the Dudufu of the Fifth Army, which will be in charge of all the troops in Daxingtai. The commanding authority is in charge of all the troops in the Northeast Province, including training, guarding, relocation, rewards and punishments. The five armies are not affiliated with each other, and each army controls about twenty battalions.The commander-in-chief of the Five Armies was directly subordinate to the Daxingtai Shangshuling.Has the right to command troops, but not the right to transfer troops.

The Staff Council is responsible for formulating strategic decisions, handling defense affairs, and responsible for recruiting, reviewing, and dispatching troops.The Staff Council has the right to deploy troops, but not to command them.

As for the Ministry of War, after the reorganization, all the important powers are assigned to the Governor's Office of the Five Armies and the Staff Council. The Ministry of War will only be responsible for the selection of generals, in charge of the united soldiers and township soldiers, management of guards of honor and vehicles, and coordination of the household department to allocate military rations and military salaries. , responsible for logistics and equipment.Dealing with administrative and logistical work.

According to the new regulations, the power to hold the military is in the hands of Daxingtai Shangshuling.Every time the army goes out, the Daxingtai Shangshuling will appoint a general to lead the army.It is also stipulated that the commanders of each army must implement the method of changing garrisons and rotations, and the generals must be replaced after leading the army for a maximum of three years.And the soldiers who have been guarding for three years must also be rotated to garrison.

In short, the Ministry of War, which used to be the most powerful among the six provinces of Daxingtai, was suddenly given full power to the General Staff Council and the Governor's Office of the Five Armies, and the Ministry of War became only the Qingshui Yamen in charge of administrative and logistical affairs.

The newly established Council of Staff is equivalent to the Privy Council of the imperial court. It has the right to deploy troops, but not to command them.

The Dudufu of the Five Armies is equivalent to the twelve guards in the early imperial court. It has the right to command troops, but not the right to deploy troops.

The Daxingtai Shangshuling has the power to control the army. When the army goes out, the commander is appointed by the Daxingtai Shangshuling.

And in this situation where the power of commanding troops, the power of holding troops, and the power of dispatching troops are separated, the local provincial governors, although they have the name of unifying the military of the province, are actually the same as the military department in Daxingtai. It is the military administration and logistics work of a province, and it is in charge of the united soldiers and township soldiers.

Moreover, under this system, when there is no war, the army is stationed in battalions in various places, and the generals above the battalion stay in the Fifth Army Commander's Mansion where Daxingtai is located.In case of war, Daxingtai Shangshu ordered the generals to use their troops. When the war was over, the soldiers returned to their garrison, and the generals returned to the governor's office of the five armies.

In addition, this restructuring also includes the Supervision Office system that has already started operation, and the restructuring of officials in various counties.

However, compared with the major changes such as the abolition of Jiedushi and the establishment of provinces, the reduction of the power of the military department, and the establishment of the General Staff Council and the Governor's Office of the Five Armies, Li Zhen and others have no intention to pay attention to the reform of the official system.

Li Zhen breathed a sigh of relief after reading the booklet in his hand in one breath. He knew that the Northeast Road was about to experience another change! (To be continued.)