When Xu Zhixian led his people to inspect the Ruichang front line, other senior civil and military officials in the Chu Empire were not idle either.

Yuan Gaofeng, Minister of Counselor and Minister of Industry, is currently inspecting Daye Industrial Base in Daye. He will inspect core factories such as Hantian Arsenal, Hantian Machinery Factory, and Daye Iron Works in Daye, and urge the subordinate factories to make steady progress.

production capacity to ensure the supply of various military products.

Especially in the Hantian Arsenal, the construction of the production line of the 2-year-old Suifa rifle is urged.

Counting Yuan Gaofeng, three of the top officials in the Chu Empire, namely the ministers of staff, have already gone out for inspections.

There were only seven ministers in total in the Chu Empire, and there were only five people in the civil service system: Guo Quanshu, who was in charge of civil affairs and internal affairs, and also served as Shangshu of the Ministry of Civil Affairs;

Qin Gaolin; in charge of industrial and commercial economics

Yuan Gaofeng is in charge of affairs and also serves as the Minister of Industry; Chen Xingkai is in charge of taxation and financial affairs and also serves as the Minister of Taxation; Song Zhang is in charge of agriculture, forestry, livestock and fishery, infrastructure, people's livelihood relief, education and other affairs, and also supervises the Minister of Ethical Education.<

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The remaining two are Xu Zhixian, the military chief of staff, and Wei Kaifu, the military and political minister.

Generally speaking, Xu Zhixian is in charge of military order affairs, and Wei Kaifu is in charge of military and political affairs.

One is in charge of fighting, and the other is in charge of construction.

Of the seven counselors in the Da Chu Empire, three have already gone out for inspections, and currently only four remain in Beijing to handle government affairs.

This immediately increased the work intensity of these four people.

These were also noticed by Luo Zhixue, so on the fourth day of July, Luo Zhixue issued an order to specially transfer Huang Chengxuan, the Minister of Finance, Zhang Xu, the Minister of Agriculture and Forestry, and Song Jingwei, the left minister of the Ministry of Personnel, due to the busy work of the Counselor.

, Sun Tianhong, deputy director of operations of the General Staff Department, and a total of ten people walked into the palace to assist in important military and political affairs.

Luo Zhixue has been planning this ‘Assisting Minister’ for a long time.

On the one hand, the current minister of state has too much power and needs certain checks and balances.

On the other hand, the work of the current Councilors is too busy. These Councilors are not only counselors in name on military and political affairs, but they really need to take turns to be on duty in the palace 24 hours a day, and when emergencies occur

Process it as soon as possible.

At the same time, in addition to taking turns on duty in the palace, they also have extremely arduous duties.

In the past, when the seven people were in Gyeonggi, it was fine and they could barely make arrangements. Now, three people are arranged to go out of Beijing for inspection. When there are only four people left, it is difficult to rotate.

At the same time, the Counselor has no other deputies. At most, there are only a few low-level rotating officials who are transferred from various yamen to handle ordinary paperwork.

And Luo Zhixue is really worried that the four ministers who are currently staying in Gyeonggi will be exhausted to death...

So taking advantage of this opportunity, Luo Zhixue directly promoted the system of assistant ministers and assigned deputy ministers to those ministers.

These assistant ministers are not in charge of multiple affairs like the counselor ministers.

Their daily work is still essential work, but they need to be on duty in the palace on a rotational basis. When on duty, they act as the deputy to the Minister of Counselor to handle affairs, so as to reduce the workload of the Minister of Counselor.

From the perspective of power checks and balances, these ministers can also check and balance the power of the ministers to a certain extent, preventing the ministers from having too much power and making it difficult to effectively check and balance other than the imperial power.

However, using the assistant ministers for checks and balances is just a precaution.

The best person to check and balance the Minister of Counselor is the Minister of Counselor himself!

As for the seven ministers, they represent different interests and have different ambitions. At the same time, their political status is at the same height. No one can say that their status is higher.

As a result, conflicts naturally arise.

Luo Zhixue is very good at creating mountains.

First, they separated the military from the political affairs, creating many conflicts between civilian officials and the military.

They also instituted the system of ministers and made some adjustments in the affairs they were in charge of, and then created conflicts among their ministers.

Even within the military, there are internal conflicts.

For example, the Army is very dissatisfied with the generous treatment of the Guards...

The Navy, on the other hand, is also very dissatisfied with the fact that the Army spends an absolute majority of its military expenditures, leaving only a little bit of silver dregs for the Navy.

The generals of the garrison division were also particularly unhappy with the generals of the main division being superior.

Recently, some generals in the garrison division, including some who have a relatively large interest in the garrison division, have been calling for the reform of the garrison division.

How to reform?

Directly expand the garrison division into the main division.

Today's garrison divisions are typical second-line troops in the Chu army system. Their tactical organization and equipment are all those of the traditional army, that is, the sentries of the Ming army camp. There are even many newly formed garrison troops, among which

The military uniforms of the generals are still those of the Ming army...

Over time, many generals of the garrison division were naturally dissatisfied and tried to promote the reform of the garrison division to enhance combat effectiveness.

Among them, Huang Guangmao, commander of the West Route Army, and several major generals in the garrison, mainly Wang Dazhuang, Ma Dapao, An Yongduo and others, as well as Chen Yongfu, He Renlong and others who were among the senior generals who had surrendered, were relatively well known.

We are actively working on this.

Previously, the two and a half kilogram field guns were assigned to the garrison division, and their promotion was indispensable.

How should I put it, people also have progressive ideas.

However, they also know very well that with the current situation of the Chu Empire, it is impossible for the garrison to be reorganized into the main division on a large scale.

This is unrealistic. After all, the size of the garrison is equivalent to that of the main force. So many people have to be converted into the main force, and the required guns and armor are a huge amount.

Nowadays, the main divisions are still unable to fully equip them. Many main divisions are still in extremely short supply of guns, especially artillery. How can it be possible to equip the garrison with the scarce guns and artillery on a large scale?

At the same time, they are unlikely to expect to be directly transferred to the main division.

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Their family members know their own affairs, but their own abilities are still flawed. Otherwise, they would not be sent to serve in the garrison. If they were really asked to command a main division, they would have to be blinded first.

After all, the tactics of the main division and the garrison division are completely different, and it is difficult for the generals of the garrison to adapt to and effectively command the main force.

And since this is the case, they have set their sights on improving the combat effectiveness of the garrison division itself.

For example, equip more field artillery, replace part of the muskets with matchlock guns, replace some messy short robes with standard two-hundred-pound short robes, and equip more armor.

These can effectively improve the combat effectiveness of the garrison.

Especially artillery!

Once the garrison itself is equipped with long-barreled field artillery on a large scale, it will gain a huge advantage in fighting the Ming army.

At that time, they will be able to fight against the large number of battalion sentries and guard soldiers in the Ming army alone without the help of the artillery troops of the main division.

Artillery, this is the biggest factor that determines the outcome of both sides in the current war.

It's just that the field artillery production capacity in the Dachu Empire seems to be very large, but the demand is even greater. The main force is waiting to use it, and the navy's warships are also waiting for a large number of long-barreled artillery.

The number of long-barreled artillery that can be freed up for the garrison is naturally not that many.

This also led to conflicts between the garrison and the main force.

There are many contradictions within the military, contradictions between the military and the civilian system, and contradictions within the civilian system, and some of them were even deliberately created by Luo Zhixue.

For Luo Zhixue, a powerful Chu Empire is certainly his pursuit, but a Chu Empire that belongs to him is his real pursuit.

Therefore, in any matter, consolidating his own power is his first priority.

Therefore, he would allow or even intensify the occurrence of conflicts, just to prevent his ministers from clumping together and restraining and balancing each other.

That day, when all the ministers under him were as close as a family, he would not be able to sleep well.

The Assistant Minister is a product used for checks and balances.

Of course, there is no need to explain these considerations to the ministers.

After the establishment of the Minister of Assistance, Luo Zhixue struck while the iron was hot and once again made some changes to Gyeonggi's administrative agencies, establishing two new ministerial-level agencies:

The Ministry of Water Resources is responsible for flood control, water conservancy and irrigation and other matters.

The Ministry of Transportation is responsible for transportation, including land transportation, water transportation, etc., as well as official road construction and other matters.

In fact, these two agencies previously had the relevant Water Conservancy Bureau and the Department of Civil Affairs. Now Luo Zhixue just expanded these two agencies and merged some other agencies, and finally created the Ministry of Water Resources and the Ministry of Communications.<

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As a result, the number of ministerial agencies under the Dachu Empire's Government Affairs Council increased from the previous nine to eleven, in addition to six independent departments and bureaus.

In the process of adding the Ministry of Water Resources and the Ministry of Communications, Luo Zhixue also made some adjustments to the functions of the original ministries and departments to make each other's functions clearer.

And this adjustment was Luo Zhixue's last large-scale change before the Eastward Campaign and even before he captured Jinling City and moved the capital.

In the subsequent Eastward Campaign, and even before moving the capital, Luo Zhixue will not make too many changes to the existing government system. He will focus on using all his strength in the Eastward Campaign.

And while Luo Zhixue was sitting in the south making final preparations for the eastward campaign, the Forbidden City in the north was in panic!

Dongji once again detoured to Mongolia and attacked south, and was about to reach the capital!

The eastward captors detoured through Mongolia and entered the country to plunder, which is nothing new in recent years.

Since the captivity of Huang Taiji, he gradually conquered Mongolia and began to use Mongolian cavalry to bypass Mongolia and enter the country to plunder.

In the second year of Chongzhen's reign, he broke through the Great Wall from Xifengkou and plundered a little bit of Beizhili, making huge gains.

From then on, Dongdu especially liked to take a detour to Mongolia and go south when he had nothing to do.
To be continued...