On the battlefield in Hedong, Zhuge Liang finally ended the battle to conquer Wenxi County on the third day of June and recover all the cities in the Qingshui River Basin, and forced Zhang Liao's remnants to Dongyuan, and the two sides confronted each other across Zhongtiao Mountain.

After a little repair for two or three days, Anmin put out the fire and restored the city. After everything was arranged, Zhuge Liang left Zhang Ren to guard the city. At the same time, Xu Huang returned to the county seat and defended him, providing a support point behind Zhang Ren on the front line.

Most of the reinforcements brought before were left behind and continued to assist in the defense of the local area. Zhuge Liang himself only brought Dian Wei and some of the cavalry troops back to Chang'an to pay his respects.

The group set off on the sixth day of the sixth month. The waterway flowed down two days and arrived at Pubanjin. They crossed the Yellow River and entered the Wei River. They walked for another three days and arrived in Chang'an on the 11th. There were nearly twenty days left before Liu Bei's throne ceremony, and the time was very abundant.

Liu Bei has not yet proclaimed himself emperor, and there are not so many taboos on the issue of "respecting wise men and women", so he went out of the city to greet him in person.

However, Zhuge Liang was young after all, and his status could not be compared with Guan Yu, so he could not go out to Xinfeng like when he was welcoming Guan Yu. He could only go out to the city for thirty miles without crossing the Ba River and waiting on Ba.

Liu Bei sincerely thanked Zhuge Liang for his outstanding achievements in the first battle. Not only did he defeat Jia Xu, but he also provided decisive assistance for Guan Yu's successful retreat.

During the conversation, Liu Bei praised him repeatedly, and then he remembered that Zhuge Liang had not taken any words until now because he was only eighteen months away and had not taken any words.

Zhuge Liang also admitted that his brother had discussed with him about taking characters, but he was not old enough so it was useless. Liu Bei asked Zhuge Jin what the character he discussed with him and asked him to use it quickly. Zhuge Liang finally had the official name "Kong Ming".

It's not enough to delay it. Ma Chao had delayed it for a long time, but because he was less than a little old, he made two military achievements. He could clearly establish a family, but he still dragged it, forcing Liu Bei to give him the words.

Zhuge Liang has made some contributions in all aspects now. He is about to hold a prominent position, but it is so polite to have no word.

This scene made the other civil officials who accompanied Liu Bei to welcome the triumphant army envious: because they were eager to get promoted and make money for a high position, they took the words from afar. What a glory.

After chatting about these feelings and thanks, Zhuge Liang asked for instructions on how to hand over Jia Xu.

Jia Xu was taken in a prison car with a silence, and he didn't eat much these days. I wonder if he planned to starve himself to death in advance in order to avoid the humiliation of abandoning the market in public.

Liu Bei took a look and made a stern sentence: "This thief was only instigated by Li Jue and Guo Si to commit rebellion. He was killed by the clan. He was deceived and escaped. He was sent to the Tingwei Prison for good life and was not allowed to starve to death. He was abandoned in public until the end of June."

The greatest source of legitimacy for Liu Bei to become emperor was that he quelled the rebellion from Dong Zhuo to Li Jue and Guo Si, and the Northern Expedition to Guanzhong was still in the old capital.

But Dong Zhuo died during Wang Yun's term, and Li Jue and Guo Si died on the battlefield and were not sentenced by Ming Zhengdian. It is rare that there is a main culprit who can be sentenced publicly, so of course we cannot miss this opportunity to declare the legitimacy of the new emperor.

Because Liu Bei has not yet been elected as emperor, he did not have a Tingwei (the Tingwei in Luoyang is Hua Xin, and now he has gone to Yecheng).

The largest subordinate officer under the Tingwei system on Liu Bei's side was Tingwei Zheng, with a rank of thousands of stones. Fa Zheng was responsible for the affairs of Tingwei without Tingwei.

Liu Bei obviously has finally realized the characteristics of Fa Zheng as a "revengeful person" in the past two years. He wanted to make a new emperor's aura after ascending the throne, and reform the personnel system to fight against Yuan Shao's ninth-rank official law, so he let Fa Zheng take charge of the judiciary, and then find a way to get rid of the dead and hard-working person who opposes the reform and continue to let him do things that offend people.

Such a "low-rank rank, high-real power" situation of being awarded officials is still widely present in Liu Bei's current nine ministers and six ministers, and it also provides a buffer for many of Liu Bei's confidant civil and military officials who were not old enough and had low official qualifications.

For example, Lu Su and Fa Zheng followed young strategists who were older but under twenty-five, it was difficult to be the Nine Ministers directly. Before Liu Bei became emperor, their official positions were not high. Even if they "followed the dragon" earlier than Zhong Yao and Xun You, they were inferior to Zhong, Xun, and others in their forties and fifties.

Lu Su was relatively better. After all, he was the governor of a state, but Fa Zheng had never even been the prefect of 2,000 stones. Before becoming the Tingwei Zheng, he was the chief minister of the Youfufeng. Who made him only twenty-two? He was not as strong as Li Su.

However, as long as the subsequent reform of ascension to the throne is implemented well, Fa Zheng can also be converted to a regular. This is the rapid promotion channel designed by Liu Bei for him, and it is exchanged for the price of being an isolated minister offending others.

Fa Zheng was also greeting Liu Bei today. Hearing the words, Jia Xu took him down immediately and ensured that he would be careful and detained. On the same day, he was tied up Jia Xu completely and knocked all his teeth. He was fed every day to make sure that he would never go on a hunger strike. He wanted to gossip but didn't chew it. He kept it for half a month before chopping it.

...

Zhuge Liang and Liu Bei returned to the city. After attending the celebration banquet at Weiyang Palace, they went back to their residence to rest. Liu Bei gave him many days off and could basically rest until Liu Bei ascended the throne.

Because Zhuge Liang is not a Beijing official now, he does not have a formal residence in Chang'an for the time being, so he bought some luxury houses as apartments, and even plaques were not hung at the door. After a day off, he remembered that he should visit Mr. Li, and asked the current political situation in Chang'an, so he asked the servants at home to prepare some gifts to the door.

Zhuge Liang had not lived in Chang'an for a long time. Last year, he followed Li Su to the south and forced Qiao Rui to surrender to him in the Wuguan Battle, so he briefly returned to Chang'an. After that, Li Su lived in Chang'an for more than a month, but Zhuge Liang was soon sent out to support Guan Yu, and he was busy until now.

So he didn't know much about the situation in Chang'an. When he sent someone to the city to buy gifts, he found that the weather in Chang'an was very different from last year.

The first impression I give people is that the business atmosphere is extremely strong. Even ordinary people at the bottom have to go out shopping every two or three days. This kind of business atmosphere was absolutely not available.

In fact, since Liu Bei changed the rent-in-one regulation method to the rent-in-one regulation method, the commercial boom in these large cities has reached a level that is more prosperous than the Tang Dynasty, but it is weaker than the Song Dynasty.

Because there is no need to pay extra tax on grain transactions, freight can be discounted. People within 200 miles of Chang'an grow vegetables but no longer grow food, and all the food is transported from foreign land.

You can buy rice once a month or even two months. Anyway, rice and flour are dry and have a long shelf life. But you can't buy vegetables for that long, because fresh vegetables have a short shelf life. Therefore, the frequency of commercial transactions of ordinary people in Chang'an City has increased ten times more than before the reform.

The new atmosphere that Zhuge Liang saw was that during the same period last year, ordinary people in Chang'an could only eat pickled vegetables and dried vegetables that were convenient for long-term storage and transportation. Now they can basically eat fresh vegetables, and the price of fresh vegetables is actually cheaper than last year's dried vegetables.

All this was felt by those officials who were concerned about the affairs of agriculture, sericulture and civil affairs before. For example, Yuan Huan, who came to Liu Bei for an envoy, noticed by observing the farming of the people along the way.

But for the general public, all this happened after the beginning of summer, because the vegetable plantings take at least half a quarter to grow in the field. What Yuan Huan saw was that the fields had not grown, but what Zhuge Liang saw was that the people were actually eating.

"The remittance and transfer reform organized by Mr. Li actually has such great additional benefits to the people. When I was first implemented, I didn't expect it. The benefits and harms of the reform were indeed not something that people with fixed laws could expect in advance. It's still 'You must practice it yourself to know this."

Especially after he found out that it was the Zhen family's idea that it was the Zhen family's idea that his family had obviously narrowed their vision in this business.

Zhuge Liang observed the people's sentiment all the way, and couldn't help but quote another famous saying that Li Su had said. At the same time, he became more and more expectant and cautious about the personnel system reform that Liu Bei was about to start to use his sword after he became emperor.

Zhuge Liang had already arrived at the Right General's Mansion while thinking about it. Of course, he didn't need to inform him when he came here, so the guards outside the door were put in directly.

Zhuge Liang saw that there were many craftsmen in the mansion gate refreshing the decorations, and some were customizing plaques to replace wooden parts of the eaves and brackets, which looked like a large-scale construction.

When he walked into the main hall, he saw Li Su, and after saluting, Zhuge Liang asked Li Su filially why he thought of repairing the house, whether he would still be planning to live here in the future.

Li Su said with a smile: "The old mansion of the Three Dukes is not as grand as mine. If you move the mansion, you have to rebuild it. If you can't get it, you can change the storefront directly. Your Majesty is right."

Zhuge Liang hurriedly asked, "Oh? Your Majesty... I want to give you the position of the Three Officials? No need to set up a new position? Congratulations first."

Li Su casually said, "Be Sikong first. The new emperor is in power. It is not advisable to increase his position suddenly. We don't learn from Yuan Shao. Yuan Shao asked Liu He to ascend the throne and would get all kinds of unprecedented rewards, which made people afraid that Liu He was a puppet.

We must ask Your Majesty to pay attention to the grace of your own. So, it’s enough to be the third duke first. A Liang, you are not an outsider, I won’t hide these words from you. In the future, Yuan Shao, Cao Cao, and Sun Ce will be destroyed sooner or later. Who will get the first merit and not be promoted and rewarded in the process of destroying them?

If you are the prime minister and general now, how should you be promoted after all this is done? Wouldn't it be impossible to be promoted? This time, Chang Yun was indeed defeated by mistake. Although you helped him save the situation later, he was not the one who personally committed the merits and punishments.

Your Majesty also doesn't want to show the world that "reserve people only, but only depends on the qualifications of the dragon." In order to be fair, this time, let Chang Yun be the Grand Marshal first. In the future, it will not be too late to defeat Yuan Shao and become a general.

Yide can be the general of the chariot and cavalry. This is why His Majesty lets the world know that the official position has no absolute relationship with relatives and qualifications. Yide can also be on par with Yun Chang."

The general was above the Three Dukes, and the General of the Cavalry was occasionally higher than the Three Dukes, and sometimes ranked alongside the Three Dukes (the General of the Cavalry was higher than the Three Dukes during the Huo Qubing period). The General of the Cavalry was always ranked alongside the Three Dukes.

If Guan Yu is the Grand Marshal Zhang Fei as a chariot, he will be completely in line.

Those top general positions did not require fullness at all times, and could be kept as a way to achieve the success of the destruction of princes in the future.

When Zhuge Liang heard this, he realized that the people's awards he had expected were high. Liu Bei was so proud of his ministers. Those who really reached the top did not consider sustainable development. This was a bad example that the emperor only had when he was held hostage.

Seeing that he was in a daze, Li Su thought Zhuge Liang was worried that "Guan Yu is not a general, so how can I be the general Sima?" so he immediately comforted him:

"The temporary suppression of Chief Yun has nothing to do with you. Your achievements exceeded expectations this time and then reversed the defeat. Therefore, after Your Majesty ascended the throne, your actual position will only be higher than originally planned. I have won you the Chief of the Taiwei and the Chief Secretary for You and the Chief of the Hedong Prefect.

The three officials have no Sima, and the chief officials are the highest. But the Grand Marshal Yun is still responsible for fighting against Yuan Shao. You can still assist his civil affairs logistics and combat strategies."

Zhuge Liang quickly explained: "No, no, no, no, you misunderstood. The disciple is not worried about his future. It doesn't matter if he is an official position in me. By the way, Your Majesty regards you as Sikong, will he still have the military position..."

Li Su: "Of course I still need military position. I am General Wei and I am the leader of the Sikong Office."

——
Chapter completed!