After Guo Ning ascended the throne and proclaimed himself emperor, he did not sit upright in the palace and rule like an ordinary Han emperor. He spent at least half of each year touring various places, just like the four seasons of the Liao Kingdom and the spring water and autumn mountains of the Jurchens.
custom.
Although the Great Zhou Dynasty was a Han dynasty, its core were Han warriors and nobles. These people valued the power of the bows and swords in their hands and did not care about trivial details that might be suspected of being contaminated by Hu Feng, so many of the old Liao and Jin systems were inherited.
On the contrary, it was civil servants like Yelu Chucai who were busy reorganizing the system and trying to imitate it in the Han and Tang Dynasties.
When the dynasty was first established, there were very few restrictions. Guo Ning's patrol routes were irregular, and his entourage often followed them lightly. For example, one month ago this year he set out from Zhongdu and visited Xiongzhou, Anzhou, Baozhou, Shunzhou and other places.
These states were also where Emperor Shizong of the Jin Dynasty went on a spring trip. Bianwubo, where Guo Ning once settled, was the goose hunting paddock of Jin Shizong.
While there, Guo Ning mainly inspected the situation of military and civilian villages in various places.
The Ding Navy relies on trade as its financial support, but it has also always attached great importance to agricultural reclamation. After the founding of the Zhou Dynasty, it put great effort into this and dispatched many capable officials to supervise it. If it were an ordinary military group, it would be difficult to get it out of the pocket.
There are so many available people, but in Guo Ning's hands, firstly, he has the talents that Yelu Chucai has gathered over the past few years, and secondly, he has the full support of Xu Zhiguo's old party headed by Xu Ding.
People in the Xu party have been criticized many times over the years, saying that although they are talented, they are not known for their virtues and like to run around for snobbery. Since the Zhang Zong Dynasty of Dajin, these people have not been favored by the Jurchen nobles on one hand, and have been favored by the Han people on the other.
Confucian scholars despised him, and even Xu Ding himself was always regarded as a scapegoat by the Jurchens.
However, the great Zhou Dynasty was determined to let bygones be bygones, and the emperor himself did not care about honest style of writing, and only wanted results in everything. Therefore, these people were all in high spirits and devoted themselves to serving the new dynasty.
Relying on the efforts of this large number of officials, farming in various places has resumed very quickly. Old refugees are returning to their hometowns from the mountains and swamps in an endless stream, and the role of the Baojia system is also obvious. In the third year of Longwu compared with last year, only
In Junzhou to the north of Hebei East Road, more than 10,000 hectares of fertile farmland have been reclaimed or restored to cultivation.
It is generally estimated that this year's harvest will definitely be higher than last year, perhaps double that of the year before.
It's just that because the court made many promises to reduce and exempt taxes in advance, there was no increase in tax revenue. If there is a significant increase in this, it will have to wait until the next year.
As people's living standards gradually recovered, business became active, and various commercial firms backed by noble groups began to make profits in various places.
The strength of these trading houses is far less than that of participating in cross-border trade and maritime trade, and the profits obtained are far less than that. They earn hard money. But for the nobles of the Zhou Dynasty who generally rise from the grass, it is already considered a windfall, so they are becoming more and more popular.
Attracting people to flock to you.
Guo Ning knew that just a few large trading houses in Zhongdu City had opened up routes from Tianjin Prefecture to Datong Prefecture in Xijing and Dading Prefecture in Beijing. Of course, it also included Zhending Prefecture, Hejian Prefecture, Daming Prefecture and even the north.
The trade routes in the Jinshan area. These trade routes are where the rule of the Zhou Dynasty is relatively stable. As for the west, because military confrontations are still frequent, it is difficult for commerce to prosper.
Most of these trade routes relied on the strength of nobles to expand, and there were frequent interest exchanges with military households in various places along the way.
While touring the civilian villages, Guo Ning paid more attention to military households in various places. He saw with his own eyes that the living standards of many officers above the rank of general had obviously widened the gap between them and the grassroots soldiers in the past two years.
Fortunately, they were generally not extravagant. Because when the imperial court was still using force, these officers were quite keen to invest money in weapons, equipment and horses. Some of the officers' direct subordinates and Alixi were already well equipped.
The elite regular army is still strong.
If things like this continue, new problems will naturally arise, even big ones.
Will officers become corrupt?
Will soldiers be exploited and become slaves of officers?
Will the imperial court's economic and political masters become a tool for the army to pursue its own interests?
Will the military's combat effectiveness be concentrated on a small number of people directly under the officers, leading to the decline of the imperial court's military force?
Guo Ning started from the bottom of his family. He is used to doing everything possible when everyone is in trouble, so he will never overestimate the moral integrity of his subordinates. His answers to these questions are always "Yes"
.
And he knows very well that these problems will break out in ten or twenty years at the most, within one or two generations at most. Even if you don't think about the long term, just look at the current level of the military's equipment and training in the past two years.
He is getting higher and higher, but his courage and fearlessness are no longer what he used to be.
There are even some people who are very satisfied with the life of their wives and children on the hot bed, and they obey the military requirements from above. They are obviously military households, and their lives are no different from those of ordinary farmers and small landowners.
Guo Ning patrolled around and dealt with the grassroots soldiers and people in person, so he naturally saw this. When he saw something that was particularly excessive, he also directly ordered the local generals who led the army to clean up, and even killed people on the spot with the emperor's order more than once.
Already.
But generally speaking, Guo Ning is not harsh on changes at the grassroots level of the military. He feels that such things are not worth paying too much attention to.
There is no ever-lasting good law in this world. Every generation has to face the problems of every generation. Various systems in later generations are called advanced, but in fact they can only be effective for ten or twenty years at most. It is a lucky thing. Even if they are said to be
People made of special materials will inevitably deteriorate here and there, causing trouble of one kind or another.
What's more, the military group gathered by Guo Ning did not have advanced ideas as guidance. Everyone joined the army to fight at first for survival or revenge, but later they thought more about wealth.
The military noble group is the foundation of the Great Zhou Dynasty. As the emperor, Guo Ning is not in a hurry to suppress them. To a certain extent, he hopes that the noble nobles can see some good days and develop a greedy mentality.
Wealth has some expectations.
Because only greed can make progress; only the expectation of continuous and more benefits can respond to Guo Ning's continuous promotion.
Guo Ning hopes that at a certain time, the interests of the royal family, civil servants and military people will be bundled into a few or a dozen large-scale trading houses. The further the power of the Zhou Dynasty reaches, the farther the trading routes of the trading companies will be, and the more powerful they will be.
The more benefits there will be; at the same time, the more benefits the warriors will receive, the further they will look.
So every time he went on a tour, he would gather the soldiers wherever he went and tell them where the recently popular products came from.
For example, the Tiantai tea that the royal general likes is a product of the Song Dynasty in the Southern Dynasty, perhaps from the manor of Shi Miyuan, the prime minister of the Southern Dynasty; the spices hidden in the home of the high commander are specialties of the big food country, shipped from the South China Sea via Jiaozhi.
That's why Shi Tianni made a big fuss in the South China Sea last year, and immediately three or five commercial banks made a fortune.
Another example is that the soldiers have recently received newly-issued military robes, and the wool is produced on the grassland. It is only provided for military use every year, which means that the boss pours financial resources into it. The private sector is in short supply. Even if we control a corner of the grassland, how can we control the entire grassland?
?
After talking too much, Guo Ning felt that he was no longer a warrior or an emperor, but a shopkeeper with a eloquent tongue.
In the eyes of future generations, I will be considered a loser. Li Yun should give me, Shopkeeper Guo, an extra reward.
The warriors of the Great Zhou Dynasty were a new and vigorous group. They generally came from humble backgrounds, so their thoughts and actions were rarely restricted, so they retained their simple and undisguised ambitions. When they experienced the temper of war, they became
After being instilled with a large amount of knowledge in the military academy, their vision was broader and their ability to act was better than that of the warriors of previous dynasties.
Guo Ning believed that they would be happy to turn their attention to the sea or the depths of the grasslands, or even foreign lands thousands of miles away. The Zhou court would not have to worry that they would be content to be just local tyrants and want to exploit their subordinates and the surrounding people all day long.
In this way, it may be possible to avoid corruption to the greatest extent after the dynasty continues.
These were all matters that Guo Ning had been weighing for a long time, and were related to Zhou's major policies. But at this moment, he frowned and looked at Zhao Xuan, then looked up into the distance. What filled his mind was a purely private matter.
That is the whereabouts of Lu Shu.
Only the disappearance of this national relative could make Guo Ning suspend his original inspection schedule, go north from Anzhou, and rush all the way to Xuande, north of Jinshan Mountain.
The Mongolian regime on the grasslands has always been hostile to the Zhou Dynasty. Small-scale battles often broke out between the two families and even between the two families and horse thieves, and between the free tribes. With the frequent business exchanges, people died or disappeared.
It is even more common. Every meadow on the grassland is covered with human bones that have been eaten clean by wild beasts for decades. Some are occasionally added over the years, but no one cares at all.
It was not until last year that the situation in the Great Zhou Dynasty became more and more stable, and the people, wealth and force invested on the edge of the grassland became more abundant, so that the caravan was able to be equipped with sufficient guards, at least to prevent ordinary horse thieves from daring to act recklessly.
Several large trading houses claimed to the outside world that they would not abandon their partners, and they also encouraged the caravans to treat their companions who went deep into the grassland favorably.
At the end of the year, an old soldier from Dinghai Navy who was transferred to the caravan as a guard disappeared on the grassland. This trading company happened to be supported by Qiu Huiluo and Zhao Jue. At that time, soldiers from various military fortresses mobilized thousands of soldiers.
The capable knights went out to search, and after finally finding the clues, they dispatched the elite knights to make a long-distance attack and wipe out the tribe that was killing people and robbing wealth.
After that trip, there was no human life on the edge of the grassland for two or three months. For their own benefit, the Mongolians began to pay attention to business rules and even took the initiative to find a suitable place to build a special settlement.
field.
That's why Lu Shu had the confidence to make this trip.
As a result, something went wrong on this trip. The benefits of the trade were too great, which triggered a fight between the Golden Family and the Liqian Family. The result of the fight was that Lu Shu disappeared.
Lu Shu was not an ordinary relative of the state. His parents were Guo Ning's educated and literate masters, his sister was Guo Ning's wife, and his brother was a servant who accompanied Guo Ning from birth to death, and died in battle to protect Guo Ning. He
He is the child who grew up under Guo Ning's eyes. He is not only Guo Ning's brother-in-law, he can almost be regarded as half a son!
The news had now spread to Zhongdu. Lu Han was very worried about this and sent several letters one after another, asking Qiu Huiluo and Zhao Jue to search carefully and bring Lu Shu back safely as soon as possible.
Guo Ning estimated that if he did not rush to Xuande from Anzhou, Lu Han himself would be unable to restrain himself and come. The queen of the Zhou Dynasty had an influence on the military and politics, which was not comparable to that of ordinary women in the boudoir; but the queen personally came to station
Borderland, commanding the infiltration into Mongolia is still too surprising. So no matter what, Guo Ning has to solve this matter as soon as possible.
But……
The grassland stretched as far as the eye could see, with no end visible to the naked eye. Even if Zhao Xuan's guess was correct, Lu Shu went to the direction of Wushabao, which was still several hundred miles away from the two major military towns of Xuandezhou and Jinshan.
The Great Zhou Dynasty expanded its power with Xuandezhou and Jinshan as the center, and formed a corner with Huanzhou in the northeast and Fengzhou in the northwest. It controlled nearly a thousand miles of land along the route. However, the control was not yet firm, and the military and civilian settlements were far from paved.
Yes, the originally small number of nomadic tribes have not yet been completely subdued.
Because the grasslands, deserts, and mountains along the route are vast and sparsely populated, Guo Ning left Xuande for twenty miles and saw almost no trace of development on the land. There were only trees, shrubs, and weeds, all of which were very lush.
Guo Ning came here, accompanied by thousands of fine horses, but not far away in front of him, there were still traces of animal activity. Previously, a servant shot an arrow into the deep grass somewhere, which immediately startled a group of wild boars and fled screaming.
This is the case twenty miles away from Xuandezhou. The Gouluo Farm, one hundred and fifty miles away from Xuandezhou, had to take shelter from the Mongols.
What about Wusha Fort, which is 370 miles away from Xuande and separated by mountains and swamps? Guo Ning knew very well that the Zhou army was completely out of reach.