Tibet

Qu Huan led 10,000 troops to ambush beside the official road fifty miles west of Huichuan City. This was an excellent ambush location. On one side was a cliff, with the surging Lu River below, and on the other side were mountains and dense forests, with only a wide strip in the middle. The official road is about several feet long, and this section of the road is more than twenty miles long. As long as it is surrounded, it will be difficult to fly.

Three thousand Tibetan soldiers escaped from Huichuan City and fled westward. At noon, the tired and hungry Tibetan soldiers finally appeared on this official road.

Three thousand soldiers were running hard when they suddenly heard a loud noise behind them and saw several big trees falling down and blocking the official road.

Before they could react, there was a banging sound on the mountain, and suddenly thousands of arrows were fired. The powerful crossbow arrows penetrated the leather armor of the Tibetan soldiers. There were screams on the official road, and the Tibetan soldiers fell to the ground after being hit by arrows. Ten thousand arrows hit three Thousands of soldiers were completely slaughtered in an overwhelming manner.

After only two rounds of arrows, only a few hundred people of the originally three thousand troops were still running wildly, and most of them had been hit by arrows.

In the third round, tens of thousands of arrows were fired at the hundreds of running people. After the last scream, the official road became quiet, leaving only painful moans.

Qu Huan waved his hand, and more than a thousand Tang soldiers rushed down and stabbed all the injured Tibetan soldiers to death with spears. More than three thousand corpses were thrown into the rolling Lu River.

Han Qiu's 5,000 troops not only killed 2,000 Nanzhao soldiers stationed on the banks of the Lushui River, but also captured the extremely important iron cable bridge, protecting the important channel for the main force of the Tang army to enter the hinterland of Nanzhao.

But Li Sheng was not in a hurry to go south. The army was stationed in Huichuan City, patiently waiting for the arrival of the medicine.

In Chang'an, the small-scale adjustment of the political affairs hall was over. Wei Jiansu remained in office for one more term as the Right Prime Minister Zhongshu Ling. Zhang Li and other assistant ministers also continued to serve. In addition to Li Mi, Li Mi served as the observer for Zhejiang East Road and Fujian Road. The envoy and governor of Fuzhou, Zhang Ping, the former inspector of Fujian Province, was appointed as the observer of Lingnan Province and governor of Guangzhou.

Liu Yan took over and became the Minister of the Ministry of Personnel. Xiao Hua, the Minister of the Ministry of Industry, took over as the Minister of the Ministry of Household Affairs. Zhang Hao, the Minister of the Ministry of Rites, was appointed as the Minister of Huangmen and was in charge of the White Tiger Hall.

Pei Zunqing, the Minister of the Ministry of Punishment, was appointed as the Minister of the Ministry of Rites. Dugulie and Duan Xiushi continued to serve in their original positions. Yan Zhenqing, the imperial censor, became the Prime Minister and became the Minister of the Ministry of Punishments.

With the stability of the political hall, the political situation also quickly stabilized.

In March, the annual imperial examination is about to begin. This year's imperial examination is unprecedented. Nearly 100,000 scholars gathered in Chang'an to compete for 120 imperial examination places, including 60 people from the Jinshi Department and 40 people from the Mingjing Department. , counting twenty people in the discipline.

The arithmetic subject here is a bit special. You need to study for five years in the Engineering College as a ninth-grade engineer, and after five years, you will be directly promoted to the eighth-grade upper level. This is better than Jinshi and Mingjing.

In the Jinshi examination, the official rank is the upper rank of the ninth rank, and the Mingjing Branch is the lower rank of the ninth rank. After five years, the official of the Jinshi branch is promoted to the lower rank of the eighth rank, and the official of the Mingjing branch is promoted one rank to the upper rank of the ninth rank. .

They are all a little lower than those who are considered subject officials and move up from the eighth grade.

Of course, in actual operation, promotion is not carried out step by step. Most people will have the opportunity to jump directly from the eighth grade to the seventh grade. Otherwise, when the first level has four levels, from top to bottom, how long will it take?

Some people even have outstanding political achievements or have strong backing, so they will be promoted several levels in a row, and will be promoted to governor after ten years in office.

It was two days before the imperial examination. At the request of Pei Zunqing, the Minister of Rites, Li Ye urgently held a political meeting meeting.

In the round hall, Pei Zunqing stood up and said to the Emperor Li Ye: "Your Majesty, the number of people participating in the imperial examination this time is 104,500. Chang'an can no longer accommodate them and has to be diverted to other counties. However, 120 people will be admitted. It was originally set when there were 20,000 to 30,000 candidates. About 200 people would be admitted to one place. Now it has exceeded 100,000 people. The additional 120 places are really too few. Almost a thousand people are competing for one place. "

Li Ye nodded and said to Liu Yan: "The key is how many quotas can the Ministry of Personnel provide?"

Liu Yan smiled bitterly and said: "Now that all the princes' and princesses' mansions have been abolished, and the Jiedu mansion has been changed to the governor's mansion, a large number of officials have to be transferred, and there will be no need to hold imperial examinations for a few years. If there are more officials now, then It can only be open source!”

"If it is open source, will the Prime Minister have a direction?" Li Ye turned around and asked Wei Jiansu.

Wei Jiansu nodded, "It's the three open source directions that Wei Chen and His Majesty talked about last time, Liaodong Xinzhou County, education and agriculture."

Li Ye pondered for a moment and said: "In addition to these three sources of income, I have always had an idea to expand the imperial court's control over the county level. Now every county has four levels of officials: officials, officials, missionaries, and servants. The imperial court only had control over four officials in the county: Ling, Cheng, Wei, and Book. At the official level, the court was completely out of control, which meant that power was out of control.

I am considering whether we can set the level of official as the lower rank from the ninth rank and bring it under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Personnel. What do you think? "

These high-ranking officials sitting here are all talented people. Once they heard this, they understood that the emperor wanted to kill two birds with one stone. One was to increase the number of officials, and the other was to seize power.

From the Han Dynasty to the present, all county-level officials have been controlled by local wealthy families, which also shows the influence of local wealthy families on county-level power.

It’s not that the past dynasties didn’t want to take care of it, but the main reason was that the distance was too far, and it was beyond the reach of the court. At the same time, it would also increase the financial burden of the court. Therefore, the court repeatedly considered it and did not decentralize the power of the court.

But the emperor obviously had already considered this.

Pei Zunqing was the first to object, "Your Majesty, the promotion of county officials involves too much and affects the interests of countless local powerful people. Your Majesty has harmed the interests of local powerful people, which will inevitably lead to confrontation and make many of our measures unable to be truly implemented. Weichen suggested that Your Majesty consider carefully."

Although it was Yan Zhenqing's first time to participate in military and political affairs, he was not stage frightened. He immediately said: "It is a good thing that Your Majesty has this idea. Now many measures of the court are difficult to implement, or will change if they are implemented. The fundamental reason is that the court's control over the county is weak. A little bit.

For example, in the household tax determination, one of the provisions states that if the household tax has been paid, the land tax can be exempted. This has led many powerful landowners to let the county government recognize that they have only one son in the family in order to evade the land tax, and pay a few thousand dollars as a token. Household tax, dozens or even hundreds of land taxes were escaped.

Why can they do this? Because the county officials who recognize the household tax are the ones recommended by them. These county officials are not afraid of being dismissed at all. If one is dismissed, the powerful landowner will recommend another.

The county magistrate could pass the responsibility to his county officials, but he would just turn a blind eye and pretend not to know. How much loss would this bring to the court?

Therefore, the power of appointing and removing county officials must be in the hands of the court. County officials will not dare to make such unscrupulous fraud. "

Li Ye frowned, "What is Yan Shangshu talking about?"

Yan Zhenqing bowed and said: "It's something about Hedong Road. Someone reported it before. The Yushitai is still investigating and verifying it. It is estimated that there will be an investigation report to His Majesty soon!"

Li Ye nodded, "Everyone, keep talking!"

Xiao Hua, the Secretary of the Ministry of Household Affairs, said: "Your Majesty, there are 1,500 counties in the Tang Dynasty. Even if one county promotes four officials as officials on average, there will be 6,000 new officials, each with a salary of five guan per month. It’s only 30,000 guan, less than 400,000 guan a year. From a financial perspective, the imperial court can afford it, but the question is, what should the civil servants do now?”

Wei Jiansu waved his hands and said: "This is not a big problem. We can do it step by step. First, we will retire the older people, and then we will not add new people, and use the imperial examination scholars to fill them. But the point is not here. The point is to affirm with the local powerful people." There will be conflicts. If His Highness must do it, Wei Chen thinks it can be piloted for one year in Guanzhong to upgrade the lower rank of Ninth Grade to the middle rank of Ninth Grade, and upgrade two first-level officials to the lower rank of Ninth Grade.

Then add a Xuezheng and Nongzheng, who are also lowered from the ninth rank, so each county will have four new places. If the teaching assistants of the state school are also upgraded to the lower rank of the ninth rank, and the teaching assistants of the county schools are promoted to the first rank, Grade officials, this solves the problem of expanding the number of places for the imperial examination this year. "

Wei Jiansu was still prudent. Li Ye agreed with Wei Jiansu's idea. He nodded and asked Liu Yan: "How many more places can be added according to Wei Xiangguo's idea?"

Liu Yan thought for a while and said: "Report to your Majesty, if it is just a pilot project in Guanzhong, and the two ninth-grade official positions of Xuezheng and Nongzheng are added, it is guaranteed that there will be about 80 new places. However, the promotion of first-level officials involves the current officials. , not sure how many?”

Li Ye then made the final decision: "I will not consider the first-level officials for the time being, and only confirm Xuezheng and Nongzheng. The total number of admissions this year is 200, and the additional 80 people will be classified as Ming Jingke."