"Your Majesty, Xun Ou, the Minister of Household Affairs, impeached Li Jing, the governor of Yongliang. He forcibly attacked Hanzhong for military merit regardless of the lives of his soldiers, causing heavy losses to the Yongliang army and spending countless money, food and materials."
Xun You said with a cold face, as if I was very angry written on his face, obviously he was really angry because of the casualties in the Battle of Hanzhong.
The casualties in the Battle of Hanzhong were indeed high. Although Ying Hao was very distressed, he did not mean to blame Li Jing. After all, in his opinion, as long as he could get Hanzhong, the price paid would be worth it.
But Xun Yu, who was specifically responsible for managing money, almost fainted from anger after seeing the casualties in the Battle of Hanzhong.
The number of Qin soldiers killed in this battle was 45,500. Including those who were disabled and had to retire, the total number was close to 50,000.
Disabled soldiers also have to pay pensions, which means that the court has to pay 50,000 yuan to their families as pensions. This is undoubtedly a very huge number, almost equivalent to the annual military salary of an army of 200,000 people.
In addition, the Yangpingguan attack and defense, and the Xinzheng attack and defense, consumed 60% of the siege materials in the Yongliang Military Region, and re-preparing them was a huge expense.
In addition, the expenses for the recovery and treatment of wounded soldiers, the repair and maintenance of damaged ordnance, and the supply of food and grass for the 300,000 people in Hanzhong all require money from the Ministry of Household Affairs.
Although Da Qin is rich today, there are many places to spend money. Moreover, it has just expanded its army by 700,000 people. The money in the treasury is constantly being spread out, and it has not stopped yet, but a big money-devouring household like Hanzhong has arrived.
It’s not that the Ministry of Revenue couldn’t afford so much money, and it wasn’t that Xun Or was worried about the money, but from an economic point of view, the effort and reward of the Hanzhong War were no longer directly proportional.
Xun or Xun did not need to make careful calculations. Just an estimate could roughly calculate that the wealth consumed by the Qin Dynasty in Hanzhong had reached an astonishing six million taels of silver.
Based on Hanzhong's population and economy, even the combined tax revenue in the next ten years will not be able to cover the expenditure. Not to mention that there are still a lot of broken problems in Hanzhong that need to continue to be spent money to solve.
Although Hanzhong is important to the Qin Dynasty, it is not indispensable. Even if Hanzhong is not in hand, the Qin Dynasty still has scattered passes to guard the pass. With Longxi as a buffer for Liangzhou, it is not afraid of the invasion of the Shu army during the Western Expedition.
It is precisely because of this that before the war started, the Qin court unanimously decided that Hanzhong would be taken if it could be taken in this battle, and if it could not be taken, let it be.
The Qin court originally had no intention of taking Hanzhong, but Li Jing knew it was impossible, but still forcefully captured Hanzhong, and paid such a high price, which increased the financial burden of the Qin Dynasty.
In the eyes of Xun He, the Minister of Household Affairs, and many civil servants, this naturally meant that Li Jing did not care about the life and death of his soldiers for the sake of merit. They did not care whether Li Jing was forced to take Hanzhong.
"Your Majesty, in this battle of Hanzhong, although our Daqin successfully occupied Hanzhong County, the casualties and investment were too great.
Therefore, Wei Chen believes that Li Jing not only has no merit, but also has a fault, so he was demoted to prevent other generals from imitating Li Jing and disregarding the lives of soldiers for merit." Xun You said with a serious face.
As soon as this statement came out, many officials from the Ministry of Revenue, the Ministry of Personnel, and the Ministry of Works all came forward to impeach Li Jing for his faults rather than his merits.
This was also the first large-scale impeachment of military generals by civilian officials since the founding of the Qin Dynasty. Moreover, it was Li Jing, the second person in the military. People who did not know the inside story thought that the civil servants wanted to suppress the military generals.
Naturally, Ying Hao was not willing to punish Li Jing. After all, conquering the world should not only be viewed from an economic perspective, but also from a strategic perspective.
From an economic point of view, the expenditure and return of capturing Hanzhong are indeed not directly proportional.
But from a strategic perspective, it has completely improved Da Qin's Kansai defense line. As long as Hanzhong is defended from now on, there will no longer be any need to worry about the threat of Shu Han.
No amount of money can buy this.
"Um, this..."
Ying Hao intended to refuse, but before he could say anything, someone refuted Xun Yu on his behalf, and this person turned out to be Zhang Yi.
"Xun Shangshu's words are wrong..."
Zhang Yi's eloquence was so sharp that even Xun Yu, who was equally eloquent, was left speechless by what he said.
Ying Hao looked at Zhang Yi in surprise. He didn't expect that he would speak for Li Jing. After all, Li Jing was forced to take Hanzhong this time, but Zhang Yi had a share of the credit.
When Zhang Yi saw Ying Hao looking at her, she averted her gaze with a guilty conscience. After all, Li Jing would be impeached by the ministers, largely because he had tricked him, so now she could help Li Jing make up for it by giving him a good word.
Li Jing was not without connections among civil servants. After Zhang Yi took the lead, Liu Bowen and Zhang Liang also stood up and put in good words for Li Jing.
"uh-huh."
Seeing that the atmosphere was about to end, Ying Hao pretended to cough and said, "What Xun Aiqing and Zhang Aiqing said are both reasonable. In my opinion, it is better to balance the merits and demerits. I will only reward Li Jing with a thousand taels of gold and a thousand households in the city as a token of encouragement."
"
"Your Majesty is wise." Xun or the other ministers who impeached Li Jing said in unison.
"Your Majesty, although Hanzhong has been acquired by the Qin Dynasty, it has only been a mess. Therefore, the candidate for the prefect of Hanzhong needs to be decided as soon as possible." Prime Minister Wang Mengjin said.
Ying Hao also nodded in agreement. After all, Hanzhong is indeed a mess now.
After the Xinzheng grain depot was burned by the Qin army, the Shu army forcibly confiscated the grain from the people to provide military use. However, Shenshi set fire to the grain depot again before withdrawing from Nanzheng.
This also means that the grain produced in Hanzhong is no longer enough for the hundreds of thousands of Hanzhong people, and the Qin Dynasty needs to provide food for disaster relief before the autumn harvest, otherwise hundreds of thousands of Hanzhong people will become hungry and then revolt.
Da Qin has been recuperating for three years. The most indispensable thing now is food. Not to mention the hundreds of thousands of Hanzhong people, they can still afford ten times more food, so the food problem is not a difficult problem.
For Da Qin, the real problem in digesting Hanzhong was that more than one-third of Hanzhong's young and strong people were forcibly recruited by the Shu army and died in battles with the Qin army.
So many young people in Hanzhong died in the battle with the Qin army, which also made the people in Hanzhong complain about the Qin army. Therefore, Da Qin is not popular among the people in Hanzhong.
In addition, although the Shu army had retreated, the spies who remained and lurked behind the scenes were inciting the Hanzhong people's hatred against the Qin Dynasty among the people, hoping to encourage the Hanzhong people to revolt against the Qin.
Issues such as food and grass, public grievances, counter-espionage, etc. all need to be solved in the short term by the future Hanzhong governor, and there is also the threat of the Shu Han in the south.
Therefore, the post of Hanzhong Governor is quite challenging and should not be filled by people who are not politically strong and have outstanding military ability.
After Ying Hao thought about it in his mind, he quickly found a suitable candidate. It was the first imperial examination champion of Da Qin and the current prefect of Fufeng, Ban Chao.
Ban Chao had breakthrough political and military abilities, and he made great contributions in the battle to destroy the Tang Dynasty. He was the perfect candidate for the governor of Hanzhong. The only disadvantage was that his qualifications were still relatively young.
However, Ying Hao always values talent and merit when employing people, so naturally he will not discard them just because of their qualifications.
"Passing my decree, Ban Chao, the governor of Fufeng, will be appointed as the governor of Hanzhong."
Hearing Ying Hao's words, the ministers below started talking one after another, and they all felt that His Majesty was partial to Ban Chao.
It has been less than a year since Ban Chao was promoted from a county minister to a prefect, and now he has to be transferred to the post of Hanzhong prefect. Although it is a horizontal transfer, the position of Hanzhong prefect on the front line obviously has much greater power than the Fufeng prefect in the rear.
.
Although Ban Chao was the first number one scholar in the Qin Dynasty, he was just a rookie in politics who had been in office for less than three years. However, he had already been promoted to the level of prefect and was about to take office as the prefect of the second county. This promotion speed was indeed a bit too fast.
Ying Hao said, "Tell Ban Chao that I trusted him and handed over Hanzhong to him. But if he can't give me a stable Hanzhong before Da Qin goes to war with all the princes, then he can take the initiative to submit his resignation."
"
As soon as this statement came out, many people began to rejoice in the misfortune. After all, the problem in Hanzhong was not easy to solve, and an all-out war with the princes was not far away.
The time is short, the tasks are heavy, and there are many troubles. The position of Hanzhong prefect is simply a hot potato.
"In the Battle of Hanzhong, our Great Qin lost nearly 50,000 troops. These 50,000 troops must be replaced as soon as possible."
Ying Hao's plan was to increase Qin's total military strength to 1.55 million through military expansion, and then use its absolute military superiority to directly overthrow the four kingdoms of Wei, Song, Ming, and Sui.
Now that the army expansion plan has been completed, the new armies have been dispersed across the country for secret training. However, the Battle of Hanzhong caused the Qin Dynasty to lose 50,000 troops.
Although the presence or absence of these 50,000 troops will not affect Great Qin's next plan, it is still good to make up for it just in case.
"The grand conscription has ended. If we conduct conscription on a large scale, it will stimulate the major princes.
In order to avoid alerting the enemy, we will only recruit prisoners of the Shu army this time. If the number is not enough, we will recruit troops locally in Hanzhong to supplement them."
Although the people in Hanzhong resented the Qin army, relatively speaking, they still hated the Shu Han more. After all, if there had not been the atrocities committed by the Shu Han, so many young people in Hanzhong would not have died.
If this hatred is channeled well, it will not only resolve the resentment of the Hanzhong people against the Qin Dynasty, but also improve the combat effectiveness of the Hanzhong soldiers. After all, fighting against Shu in this way is not an invasion, but a matter of revenge.
"As for sending more generals to join the Yongliang Army..."
Through Li Jing's summons, Ying Hao already knew that Li Yuanba had appeared and that his left arm had been attached, so he took Li Jing's request to send more generals to Yongliang very seriously.
Li Jing knew that he could not win over Li Cunxiao, so he wanted any two of the four Jiang Song, Yuwen Chengdu, Lu Bu, and Gao Chong to join the Yongliang army, but Ying Hao could not agree to this request.
The number of powerful generals in the Yongliang Army is already quite saturated. Many war gods such as Yang Jian, Xuanyuan, Long Qie, Long Yang, etc. are all in the Yongliang Military Region. If they do not transfer some of the most powerful generals to join other military regions, it will be quite good.
It is obviously impossible for Li Jing to ask for two super generals. If he really does this, other military regions will definitely have objections.
After thinking for a while, Ying Hao decided to ask the opinions of these four generals, but he did not expect that after Yuwen Chengdu learned about Li Yuanba's news, he took the initiative to apply to join the Yongliang Military Region.
Ying Hao knew that Yuwen Chengdu was going to Li Yuanba. He regarded Li Yuanba as his old enemy, but he only defeated the one-armed Li Yuanba once in the battle to destroy the Tang Dynasty. All other battles were defeated without exception, so much so that Li Yuanba was dying.
It became his inner demon.
Today's Yuwen Chengdu has also been reborn, and his strength is far greater than before. But if he wants to continue to progress, he must get rid of his inner demons.
Ying Hao had no reason to stop Yuwen Chengdu from getting rid of his inner demons, not to mention the fateful fight between him and Li Yuanba, so he agreed to Yuwen Chengdu's request to join the Yongliang Army.
On the other side, Li Jing secretly breathed a sigh of relief after receiving the order from the court.
He was actually prepared to be reprimanded or even degraded. After all, the losses in this battle were indeed too great.
The last time the Qin army suffered so many casualties was the second Guanzhong battle with Li Tang.
However, in this battle, the Qin army not only captured Guanzhong, three counties in Longxi, and two counties in Shangyong, but also captured one and a half counties in Liangzhou.
Nowadays, for only one county and ten counties in Hanzhong, he has paid such a high price. The payment and reward are indeed somewhat disproportionate. It is impossible for the civil servants in the court not to impeach him.
But instead of blaming him, His Majesty rewarded him with a thousand pieces of gold and an additional city. This naturally moved Li Jing very much.
However, when he learned that when the ministers impeached him, the first person who spoke for him was Zhang Yi, Li Jing was also very surprised, and his resentment towards Zhang Yi also subsided a lot.