Li Yundun was running around, busy with his business, while Xu Jin was ordered by the emperor to carry out a small-scale purge in Daxing Prefecture and Tianjin Prefecture.
At the same time, officials in Daxing Mansion in Zhongdu were busy with the complicated affairs at the end of the year and the beginning of the year, while arranging the celebration ceremony for the prisoners to be sacrificed when the army returned home from the expedition, as well as the relocation and sacrifice of the royal relatives. These two events The matter is related to the dignity of the country and must not be ignored. It is also an important way for Confucian officials to show their talents, so it also attracts the attention of many people.
It is a pity that although they are all energetic and show their talents in ancestral temples, rituals, music, systems, etc., they try their best to show the laws of the great country and describe the majesty of the Han and Tang Dynasties; but the protagonist of the whole set of rituals, the Emperor Guo Ning of the Zhou Dynasty, has always been Stay in Tianjin Prefecture.
The emperor also sent a message saying: The ceremony must be simple and the process must not be complicated. Mr. Guo was not present at the previous rehearsal. I will be present when the formal ceremony is held.
As soon as these words were said, it was like eliminating the possibility of all grand arrangements. If it was done too much, the ceremony process would be complicated, and the emperor would behave awkwardly and be laughed at by others. Who should be responsible? Who can bear the responsibility?
The once overly noisy atmosphere in some corners of the court returned to calm almost instantly, while Guo Ning had a few days of leisure in Tianjin Mansion.
On this day, Yelu Chucai came to Tianjin Mansion on official business. Guo Ning held a small banquet in the inner garden of the palace and invited Yelu Chucai to be his guest. In addition, he also invited several close associates who had set up camp in Tangluo, Hebei Province to accompany him. .
The building in the inner garden was very spacious and bright, and everyone at the banquet was in a good mood.
While eating, drinking, and chatting, Yelu Chucai talked about the concerns of his own Confucian officials, the origin of their knowledge, made a few casual comments, and then turned to the similar styles of the Southern Dynasties' civil servants. In this regard, Yelu Chucai's skills were better than Guo's. There were too many Ningzong warriors, and when he talked eloquently, the listeners could only nod their heads.
Then Guo Ning said that many of the spies sent to the Southern Dynasties by the Left and Right Departments and the Recording Department had similar returns. It was said that the Confucianism admired by the Song Dynasty also mixed the knowledge of Buddhism and Taoism, and it no longer resembled "learning" but became closer to "teaching". "People who firmly believe in this often also value culture over military affairs and regard the rule of the country by warriors as the source of troubles. This greatly weakened the political influence of the Zhou Dynasty, which it claimed to have inherited from the Five Dynasties orthodoxy, which was helpless.
Yelu Chucai nodded:
"After all, the mentality of the people of the Song Dynasty is very different from that of the people of the Central Plains. The Song Dynasty ruled the people with civil rule and extremely despised military preparation. It has persisted for more than two hundred years and has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. Even the youngest children know that there is something outside the Donghua Gate. The good men who were called out in Linxuan were thousands of times better than the warriors who defeated the enemy on the battlefield. Although this method could not be used to compete with the big powers, it actually maintained the stable livelihood of the people under the rule of the Song Dynasty. It had to be That makes sense."
Having said this, he turned sideways to look at Monk Luo who was eating and drinking happily, and said with a smile: "In the eyes of the Song people, they regard us as northern captives, thinking that we are rough and violent, but we are still the mainstream. Maybe, in the Song Dynasty, the people in power In the eyes of foreigners, their huge trade with us is just the fat that feeds the many tigers under His Majesty's command. When the tigers are full of food and drink, there will always be times when they try to break free of their chains. Then, the people of Song Dynasty can easily see As the northern powers continue to fight among themselves, they are seeking their own death."
The military regions of the Great Zhou Dynasty were set up with three recruitment divisions in the north and three military divisions in the south. Monk Luo served as the commander-in-chief of Shandong as a marshal, controlling the base area where the Dinghai navy was founded, and one-third of the southern part of the Zhou Dynasty.
He had front-line military strength and directly faced the core area of the Southern Dynasty. The core military force could be described as high and powerful. His official position and title had already grown beyond the space of twenty or thirty-year-olds.
But Monk Luo's appearance now seems to be no different from that upright monk who dominated the mountain and became king.
He just put down the wine bowl and looked at the two big pots of vegetables in front of him with all his attention.
A pot of braised elbow and a pot of charcoal-roasted lamb leg. The elbow is bright red in color, the sauce is thick, and exudes hot white steam; the skin of the lamb leg is crispy and brown, and just by looking at it, you can think of the crunch when chewing.
There is a soft sound, and the joy of crispy and tender mixture between the teeth and cheeks.
When Yelu Chucai looked at him, he just responded casually: "Fat meat? Fat meat is delicious!"
Guo Ning laughed loudly: "If it tastes good, eat more. After I ascended the throne, the chefs I invited have extraordinary skills. These two dishes were specially prepared to comfort me. Try it, do you like it?"
"very good!"
Monk Luo rolled up his sleeves and brought two large dishes directly in front of him: "To tell you the truth, I can't eat such good food in Yidu Military Academy these days. How many years have those cooks in the military academy
No progress has been made!”
Monk Luo came to Tianjin Mansion, naturally, not just to hang out. Since last year, the Tatars on the grassland have become increasingly weak, and the emperor has been patrolling the three northern recruitment departments more and more intensively, revealing that he will continue to move northward.
Invest resources and launch military aggressive intentions.
The military men under the Shandong Tongjun Division were either envious that their colleagues in the north would soon have the opportunity to be rewarded for their meritorious service, or they complained privately about why the imperial court did not take any measures in the south. The military men in Shandong generally had high qualifications, great achievements, and a lot of power in their hands.
More courageous.
Some of them were also working together privately, and some even planned to organize several large-scale provocations at the border in an attempt to attract the emperor's attention back to the southern front.
However, Monk Luo may seem crude and naive, but he actually came from a background as a frontier soldier. He has a lot of sophisticated military management methods and is very scheming.
Just last month, he used various reasons to pull these people away from the headquarters, gathered them together, and then threw them into Yidu Military Academy, where they underwent a whole month of closed training.
During this month, the military academy was personally in charge of Monk Luo, and no one was allowed to enter or leave. Only the instructors smiled ferociously, looking at the juniors who had not come to suffer for a long time, and tortured them severely in various ways.
These instructors are either senior veterans in the military, or officers who have been tested for a long time but chose to retire due to injuries or other reasons. In terms of seniority in the military, even the higher-level generals would not dare to show off in front of them.
And these instructors have only one mission, which is to force the students to learn the truth that soldiers must not be domineering, must not disobey military orders, and must take obedience as their bounden duty, and re-burn this truth into their minds.
The martial arts group in the Great Zhou Dynasty was extremely powerful. However, Guo Ning never deliberately suppressed it, and even tacitly allowed the warriors to take some harmless measures to win some benefits for his own group.
This is completely different from the Southern Song Dynasty's attitude towards military personnel. The Song Dynasty used civilians to control the military power, and used strict laws to control the military personnel. Even in the military layout, it also tried its best to form both Xuanxu and Zhisi; both Zhizhi
There are envoys and pacification envoys. Everyone has the same power and authority, and the relationship is restrained by each other.
This is to prevent the military generals at the middle and lower levels from being related and interacting with each other, so as to prevent the military generals from joining forces to form a large military town covering a large defense area, joining forces to fight against civilian officials or even conspiring to rebel.
The Zhou Dynasty naturally had no such considerations. Guo Ning himself was the most prestigious military commander and the natural leader of the largest faction in the army. What he wanted was for the army to work together as one and form a tight whole.
Guo Ning is not afraid of someone in the army who is ready to fight, and he doesn't even have any special aversion. The most ferocious and reliable hounds on the grassland will inevitably bar their teeth at their masters. As a master, they only need them at critical moments.
Always follow instructions and don't be too demanding.
There is only one bottom line, that is, you must be loyal, you must stand firmly in the entire steel-like collective, and act with the sole will.
Therefore, those who intend to gather manpower and initiate a war to provoke the Song Dynasty in Huainan and Huaibei will definitely suffer unprecedented hardships in the military academy. Some people may be discharged from the army, and some may die... just like the deaths in Tianjin Prefecture
The same as those of others. Guo Ning treats his soldiers well, but he will never relax the laws set by himself.
This kind of binding force that the commander has on the army comes from the trust that soldiers entrust their lives to each other, from the soldiers' obedience to the strong, from the continuous training of military personnel who meet the requirements of the military academies in various places, and the constant return of lessons and lessons.
It comes from Guo Ning's deep understanding of the military itself.
This level of understanding is definitely not enough to prepare for a rainy day and solve all problems in advance, but it is enough to deal with problems in a timely manner after they are exposed.
If the local general, like Monk Luo, has the ability and means, the general will solve the problem according to Guo Ning's prior instructions; if the local general's qualifications and reputation are slightly insufficient, such as Guo Zhongyuan, who stayed in Nanjing, Guo Ning also has enough
Tools and manpower enable you to carry out your intentions at any time.
Therefore, the army of the Zhou Dynasty will not become the warlords who fought with each other during the Five Dynasties as the Song people in the Southern Dynasty thought.
There are many reasons for this that the people of the Southern Dynasty and Song Dynasty could not imagine.
For example, the Zhou army arranged officers' affiliations and service locations very frequently, so it was difficult to form a deep-rooted mountain in the army. It was also difficult for ordinary generals to organize a credible group of people to do things that violated military orders. Even Yin Chang
Such a veteran can only use his strength outside the army in the end.
For another example, the Great Zhou Dynasty was a dynasty that relied on force to defeat countless enemies. Even if the Zhou soldiers had more ideas in their hearts, they would never reach the level of rebellion. The Song people believed that feeding arrogant warriors with fat meat would
The warriors gradually began to fight among themselves. But in the eyes of no one in the Zhou Dynasty, the Song Dynasty in the Southern Dynasties was the fattest. On the contrary, Guo Ning always held the reins and prevented them from launching a southern invasion.
The most important guarantee was the staggeringly prosperous trade between the Zhou and Song dynasties.
The brutality and separatism of the warriors during the Five Dynasties was due to the fact that brutality and separatism could bring them the greatest benefits. But for the Zhou army generals, the greatest benefit was not the land, but the trading houses and businesses that Guo Ning and others continuously established.
A huge trade network to match.
A rebel may be able to seize a certain military state with his troops, but he cannot seize a certain trading house or a certain trade route. These two must be attached to the entire military group or the military noble group of the Great Zhou Dynasty, and their links
There are too many and too complex to be robbed by a small group of people.
The result is that even if a small group of people separatize the military state, they cannot use the human, financial and material resources as much as the entire military group. Any foolish move will inevitably cause chaos and destruction, and the warriors of the Great Zhou Dynasty will be destroyed.
They can only be a whole. The biggest contradiction between them is nothing more than where to use their own fangs and teeth.
The only question that everyone is thinking about now is how to make the Southern Song Dynasty understand that only Confucian scholars can govern the country in the world, and that the system of the Zhou Dynasty has its own ability to stand on its own, and it is by no means comparable to the military regime of the Five Dynasties that only relied on brutality.
?
Guo Ning did not think that the Song Dynasty could be the rival of the Zhou Dynasty. However, in everything, it is better to think ahead.
As the business cooperation between the two companies has become increasingly close, the number of personnel exchanges has increased rapidly from hundreds to thousands. In Tianjin alone, there are no less than 300 to 500 Song merchant ships docked daily, with nearly ten thousand people on board.
.
According to the earlier thoughts of several people in the center, under such intensive exchanges, the style of the Great Zhou Dynasty would naturally spread to the Southern Dynasties. The martial might of the Great Zhou Dynasty and the high-spirited spirit of the Great Zhou Dynasty could also be felt by the people of the Song Dynasty.
But, maybe this is not enough?
Guo Ning vaguely remembered that nearly a thousand years later, the regime of the Central Plains had been in embarrassment and had been confined to a small island in the southeast for decades. Seeing that the new regime of the Central Plains was a hundred times more powerful, the people on the island still clung to their little pride.
Not even to death.
It's just a small island like this, but the Song Dynasty was much bigger than it.
Not to mention the officials of the Southern Dynasties, the deep-rooted things in the minds of ordinary Song people have obviously not been shaken by the exchanges between the two parties. The group of people active on the trade line have far less influence on the sunrise and sunset of the Song Dynasty.
And the ordinary people who live in Xixi. Therefore, the stronger Dazhou is in their eyes, the more it will arouse their vigilance and resistance, and the more it will prompt them to unswervingly defend their own way.
What can I do?
Yelu Chucai suddenly smiled: "I have a plan that can slowly reverse this situation. However, your Majesty and the soldiers must provide some benefits."
