In the Song Dynasty, there was no law or order.

The next day was Zhao Jun's 30th birthday.

Zhao Zhen held a grand banquet for him, and everyone in the Political System Institute attended, and all officials gave him gifts.

Now the Political System Institute has extraordinary power in the court, and it can be said that the whole court is full of supporters.

Although they seem to be divided into different factions, they are actually united.

For example, in addition to Lu Yijian, Song Shou, and Jia Changchao in the Political System Institute, the Lu Party also includes Chen Yaozuo, Wang Gongchen, Zhang Dexiang, Chen Zhizhong and others.

In addition to Wang Zeng, Cai Qi and Han Ju who died of illness, the Wang Party also includes Zheng Jian, Ye Qingchen, Song Qi, Song Xiang and others.

Zhao Jun's followers include Li Di and Xia Song.

The rest of Fan Zhongyan, Yan Shu, Sheng Du, Zhang Shixun, Jiang Tang and others only seem to be neutral, but in fact they are still willing to follow Zhao Jun.

In addition, more than 20 or 30 ministers of each department, such as Du Yan, Hu Su, Li Ruogu, etc., only have great power in their own departments. In terms of formulating national strategies, they can only follow the arrangements of the Political System Institute.

In this way, basically as long as the Lü Party and the Wang Party do not have too much opposition, the policy can be easily passed.

In fact, Zhao Jun's opponents in the Political System Institute are mainly Lü Yijian on weekdays, and Wang Zeng only occasionally raises objections when he thinks there is something wrong.

As long as it is beneficial to the country, Zhao Jun persuades Zhao Zhen, and Lü Yijian has no way to obstruct it. For example, under the Kaocheng Law, even if his son is arrested, he will have to stop as soon as Zhao Jun comes back.

Therefore, most of the civil servants in the court have accepted the reformed new official system and are beginning to move towards a path of vigorous development under the leadership of the Political System Institute.

After his birthday, Zhao Jun began to prepare Fan Zhongyan to cut off the firewood while handling state affairs.

Starting from January, the court gradually withdrew the sons of nobles and generals in the army under various names, or transferred them back to Bianliang, or transferred them to idle positions.

Among them are Ge Huaimin (son of Ge Ba), Xu Huaide (son of Xu Jun), Zhe Jimin (grandson of Zhe Yuqing), Gao Jixuan (son of Gao Qiong) and other generals who are relatively famous in the Song-Xia War.

There were only one or two hundred generals in the early Song Dynasty, but after decades of reproduction and development, there are now almost three or four generations, and their descendants have multiplied to tens of thousands.

Among the tens of thousands of people, there are not many people who are actually in the army. There are many people whose families have declined and even become beggars.

For example, "Zizhi Tongjian" records that in the thirty years after the death of Cao Han, a famous general in the early Song Dynasty, his ten sons quickly squandered the Cao family's property, and many of his grandsons became beggars.

But even if there are not many, there are still one or two thousand people.

Most of these people serve as middle and lower-level officers in the army, and many directly serve as battalion commanders, or even higher-level military positions. Ordinary people, even the emperor, may not be easily transferred.

However, when Lao Fan came forward, there was almost no setback.

No matter you are a proud soldier or a son of a noble family, you have to obey the transfer order without any room for rebuttal.

In the final analysis, Lao Fan has defeated Xixia and Liao in the past few years, and his prestige in the army is very high, which is higher than Wang Deyong, who has been promoted from deputy privy councilor to privy councilor because of his military exploits.

Even many civil officials think that although he is a civil servant, he is suspected of being too meritorious, and often impeach him for rebellion, which shows how famous he is in the army.

After he took action, a large number of middle and lower-level sons of nobles were transferred away, and there was almost no ripple.

In April, Lao Fan began to form an inspection team. After the original Minister of Works Han Ju died of illness, he was replaced by the Minister of Education Jia Changchao, and the Minister of Education was replaced by Fu Bi.

But the court made a new replacement, changing Fu Bi to the Minister of War, and the original Minister of War Zhang Dexiang was transferred to the Ministry of Education, and Fu Bi was ordered to preside over the investigation of the number of soldiers.

Fu Bi then formed a professional team, including Zeng Lin, the left assistant minister of the Ministry of War, Sun Kang, the doctor of the Ministry of War, and Wang Anshi, Huang Shu, Su Xun and others who had just completed their three-year term and were transferred back from local county magistrates.

These newly promoted scholars are the same as the censors, young and energetic, and it just happened to be a political achievement, so it is natural to give them the job.

So Fu Bi, from top to bottom, did not have enough officials who returned from local inspections, so he drew from various departments and formed a team of more than 300 people. In May of the fourth year of the Qingli period, they went to various parts of the country to check the number of soldiers.

In fact, if you really want to check people, there is no need to make such a big fuss. Now the soldiers are stationed in various places. Except for the local wing troops, most of the soldiers are concentrated in Bianliang, Shaanxi Road and Hebei Road.

Let the local government do it.

However, Zhao Jun suspected that there was more than just the problem of eating up the vacancies, and he was afraid that there were other inside stories. Therefore, this team was equivalent to the court inspection team. On the surface, it was to check people, but secretly it was actually to investigate whether the generals and nobles had done anything bad in the army.

Their duties are equivalent to those of the Imperial Censor. There are about 2,000 camps in the country, and each person has to check six to seven on average. After entering a camp, not only must the superior department fully cooperate, but also have the command of the camp.

This means that if the original camp commander is a son of a noble who has been transferred, he will be directly accepted by the inspection team.

If not, the camp commander will also be under the command of the inspection team, and may even be isolated and detained for a period of time. He can only be released after the investigation is clear.

In order to prevent the army from being restless and internally turbulent during this period, which may lead to the Xixia and Liao seeing an opportunity and taking advantage of it, the court ordered the deputy envoy Zhang Kang to lead four firearms to Hebei Road, and ordered Wang Deyong to lead three firearms to Shaanxi Road.

In this way, there are 35,000 pure firearms teams on Hebei Road and Shaanxi Road, including 31,500 musketeers, 2,500 artillerymen, and about 15,000 escorts of cannons, grenades and other firearms. Logistics force.

Whether it is a field battle or a city defense, it is enough to deal with the sudden attack of the Liao and Xixia cavalry.

June 4th.

Recently, the imperial court is counting the number of troops in the country, but there are no troubles among officials.

First of all, this decree has been passed by the Constitutional Yuan, and now we just have to implement it.

Secondly, this does not involve the interests of the officials.

It was the imperial court's duty to check the number of troops in the first place. However, due to poor supervision in the past and the hidden rules of the army left by Zhao Kuangyin, all the officials were too lazy to check, so management was neglected.

It is also normal to conduct verification now.

But among the noble generals, a huge wave was set off like a stormy sea, which made many noble family heads panic.

On this day, several heads of the family, Xungui, who were on good terms with each other on weekdays, gathered together to chat.

It was midsummer, and five people in Ma Mansion were drinking in the backyard. At first, they were changing glasses as usual. When it was about time, Ma Zhengju, the owner of Ma Mansion, complained: "The imperial court is trying to push us to death. ”

Ma Zhengju is the great-nephew of Ma Renyu, a famous general in the early Song Dynasty. Ma Renyu's son committed crimes in his early years and was exiled to Hainan. He died of illness on the way. Ma Renyu's brother died young, and he raised his brother's son.

This nephew was not a good person. Because his uncle was Ma Renyu, he usually behaved randomly. One day, he drank too much and beat a young man passing by to death for no reason.

Ma Renyu was a man of very good character among the famous generals in the early Song Dynasty. He did not spoil his nephew and let the Yamen handle matters according to the law and kill people to pay for their lives.

As a result, Ma Renyu had no descendants. Zhao Guangyi took pity on him, so after his death, his nephew's son inherited the honorary position of the Ma family, served as the deputy envoy of Zuozangku in Xijing, and enjoyed state support.

The other people also have great backgrounds, including Wang Shenqi's grandson Wang Shilong, Yang Guangyi's grandson Yang Rende, Zhao Yanhui's grandson Zhao Kaiji, and Han Chongyun's grandson Han Yunsheng.

Wang Shilong used to do well and served as the deputy envoy of the Imperial City Department. However, he was fired by Zhao Jun for being late, so he always harbored a grudge against Zhao Jun.

He said viciously: "This is all the fault of that damn Zhao Jun! This man deserves to die!"

"Hey, Brother Wang, be careful what you say."

Han Yunsheng stretched out his hand, looked around, and when he saw no one around, he whispered: "Now Zhao Zhiyuan has the authority and your Majesty's trust. If outsiders hear it, I'm afraid it will be detrimental to you."

"It doesn't matter, they are all brothers."

Wang Shilong was slightly startled when Han Yunsheng mentioned this, and then he realized that he had talked nonsense while drunk, and quickly made up for it: "My brothers will never harm me."

"That's true."

Zhao Kaiji also kept saying: "What you say today is just for your own words. Don't spread it out."

Some of the heads of the Xungui family are second-generation children. Except for Cao Cong, a son born to Cao Bin in his later years, who is only about fifty years old now, the rest may be over sixty years old.

The third generation children are generally around 30 or 40 years old, and no one can play with each other.

Therefore, these three generations of generals have often played together since childhood and have been in a relationship for many years. Among them, Yang Rende even had a good relationship with Cao Xiu when he was a child.

Ma Zhengju changed the subject and asked Yang Rende: "Old Yang, you went to Cao Xiu's house before and asked if you found anything?"

"well."

Yang Rende sighed: "Old Cao asked us to listen to the imperial court and not to be stubborn. The imperial court found us a job that would make us more money than we do now. He has already escaped from the army anyway. He is now the envoy of the imperial city. , but his younger brother Cao Ren is now the president of Cao's Trading Company."

When Wang Shilong learned that his former colleagues had completely given up their military career, he frowned and said, "It's impossible that the Cao family doesn't have dirty things. Don't they have any intention of covering it up?"

"There is a queen in my family. Madam Zhiyuan, what are you afraid of?"

Zhao Kaiji laughed at himself: "We are said to be the descendants of a noble family, but in fact we have no power and no backing. Once something happens, doesn't the court just want to deal with us?"

"You guys said, if we admit our mistake to the court, will the court be lenient because of the friendship between our fathers?"

Han Yunsheng hesitated and said: "You have also seen the attitude of the officials and the Imperial Household. They are willing to discuss with us instead of starting to take action directly. Doesn't this mean that there is room for maneuver in the matter?"

"this"

The others looked at each other, lost in thought, as if wondering whether this thing would work.

"hehe."

Wang Shilong sneered and said: "Let's not talk about other things first. Let's just talk about your son leading more than ten soldiers in your hometown in Cizhou. He took a fancy to other people's women, beat their husbands to death, and raped them back home. If that person If the Supreme Court can be accommodating, just go ahead and say so."

Han Yunsheng remained silent.

"And you, Lao Yang, your family has resold a lot of military weapons to Xixia and Liao Kingdoms, and sold a lot of prohibited items, right? I heard that you even sell hand grenades."

"Old Ma, you secretly killed some old soldiers in the army who were about to die of old age, so as to take advantage of the quota. When word spreads out, do you think the officials will let you go, or will the prefect let you go?"

"Old Zhao, you have done a lot of dirty things. Once it is revealed, how many lives in your family will be enough to cover it?"

"We are all grasshoppers on a rope. As long as we are found out, no one can escape."

Wang Shilong said one by one: "What's more, the imperial court has already begun to count the number of troops. Hasn't it already begun to directly take action? Save it, what is before us now is a dead end!"

As he spoke, he poured himself a bottle of wine, took another swig, and then smiled mockingly, as if he had given up on himself and faced the reality calmly.

The rest of the people lowered their heads and remained silent.

The reason why the generals and nobles could not stand up in Bianliang was because in the Song Dynasty, where civil servants were valued over military affairs, the civil service group was more powerful than them, and the censors and admonishment officials would not tolerate them.

But they still have some energy among the troops managed by local governments and subordinate battalions.

After all, although the San Yamen does not have the actual power to mobilize troops, it can control promotions, rewards and punishments, daily training, management and other tasks. They serve in the San Yamen, and there are some children in the family who serve as commanders and governors of the various battalions below. Such officers can naturally intervene in certain military affairs.

Therefore, the Xungui family, which seems to be relatively honest in Kaifeng Mansion, Bianliang, is lawless and domineering in the local area, especially in terms of ordinary people and the part of the army they manage.

Just like many people in the countryside do not need to think about the emperor, prime minister, or even the local magistrate, county magistrate, or county lieutenant. The clan chiefs, landlords, and gentry in the village are already big figures who can determine their destiny.

They also hold the power of life and death for other specific groups of people.

Therefore, they can make money or gain privileges through some conventional means. Selling prohibited items is a routine operation of Jiangmen Xungui. Naturally, there are countless other illegal activities.

Therefore, it is not that they are unwilling to accept the conditions of the imperial court, but once the imperial court begins to clean up the army and conduct strict screening and inspection of the army, the bad things they have done in the past will be revealed at once. Unless the imperial court can bear it, otherwise they will All must be beheaded.

If Zhao Jun hadn't come, they might have agreed.

After all, they themselves did not have the energy to resist. Later, during the Song Shenzong and Song Zhezong periods, there were varying degrees of disarmament. Although the reductions were not much and most likely did not involve the interests of the generals and nobles, there was not much resistance.

However, Zhao Jun came.

Everyone in the Song Dynasty knew that he could not tolerate sand in his eyes.

Although Liu Yuanyu, who was more powerful than them, was not beheaded for selling prohibited items, he was sentenced to several years and was directly exiled to Hainan.

Which of the Han family and Ma family is not the prime minister's family? The crime may even be lighter than theirs, what will be the outcome?

How dare they let the court lift the lid?

For a moment, everyone was silent, making the place as quiet as a lake without any waves.

At this moment, someone suddenly threw a stone, and Han Yunsheng looked at Wang Shilong and said, "Then according to your old Wang's wishes, we can only sit back and wait for death?"

"No, I do have an idea."

"Oh? Tell me."

"It's just that this idea is a serious crime of decapitation. I don't dare to say it."

"We are all brothers, what are you afraid of?"

"Then I'll tell you."

Wang Shilong looked around at the crowd under the influence of alcohol and said in a low voice: "There is an expert behind me who is telling me that if the envoy who went to inspect was assassinated, this matter can be solved!"

"What?"

Everyone was horrified: "Are you crazy?"

"I'm not crazy."

Wang Shilong shook his head and said: "Think about it, the imperial court is already investigating us. If we continue, we will definitely die. But if the envoy is assassinated, then the matter will be settled in the end, and we can survive. Between life and death, you yourself Choose.”

"Ah."

Ma Zhengju sneered and said: "I think you drank too much and plotting to assassinate the envoy is considered rebellion. Not to mention how you can kill more than 300 people? If you want to die, don't take us with you."

"First, there are more than 300 envoys, so we can only investigate our own part."

Wang Shilong said in a deep voice: "Secondly, when you go out, there is always the possibility of an accident. Who knows? What's more, if you don't dare to do it, then everyone will die together in the end, so why don't you dare to take a chance?"

Everyone was silent, no one spoke.

But this idea is like a stone thrown into a calm lake, causing ripples uncontrollably.

Yes.

The current situation is that if the imperial envoys are allowed to go out to various places to investigate the troops under their jurisdiction, Lao Di may be found out.

Once something happened before, no one present could run away.

If he murdered the imperial envoy, he might be able to survive.

"The last resort was to murder the envoy. I think it's better to try to cover up the evidence first."

At the end, Han Yunsheng sighed.

In fact, they all know that this is difficult. They are used to showing off their power in the army. There are too many people involved in the case and it is impossible to seal it.

Many soldiers knew the situation. Once they were caught by the imperial envoy or someone reported them, they would fall in an instant.

So covering the lid is as difficult as going to heaven.