In the late September of the thirty-sixth year of the First Emperor's reign.

The much-anticipated Northern Tour of Ying Zheng came to an end. The Northern Tour convoy left Shangjun completely, entered the Neishi area, and embarked on the journey back to Xianyang.

It is expected that we can return to Xianyang before the New Year's Day, which is the first day of October.

As the northern tour came to an end, a piece of news quickly spread throughout the world.

The other forces have been waiting for many days of "fun" and finally have a clear result.

Before leaving Shangjun County to govern Fushi City, Yingzheng gave a serious warning to his eldest son Fusu, who was demoted to the supervisory post of the Northern Territory Army.

The reason is that he was not strict with his subordinates and allowed officials in the north to form cliques for personal gain, collude with each other, and disrupt the laws and regulations of the court.

Along with Fusu, a large number of local officials from various counties in the North were also criticized by Ying Zheng.

However, they did not have the treatment of a biological son like Fusu. Not only did they receive a beating, but they were also demoted and transferred.

The better ones were demoted and transferred to other places, and the worse ones were dismissed directly.

This official transfer was a major earthquake in the officialdom of Northland, affecting seven counties and nearly fifty officials at all levels.

At first glance, there are not many people. On average, there are less than ten people in a county, or even less than eight people. Compared with the Lao Zhu family of later generations, it is simply not worth mentioning.

But in fact this is already a lot - these nearly fifty officials are all serious administrative officials.

The number of bureaucrats in the empire is very limited. The total number of administrative officials in an entire county is estimated to be only twenty or thirty, and there may be as many as forty or fifty.

If it is a small county with few counties under its jurisdiction, there may only be a dozen or twenty officials.

Of course, if we include the various small officials who have rank in the countryside, such as rural misfits, rural assistants, youyou, three elders, pavilion chiefs, pavilion assistants, pavilion marquises, etc., there are indeed many.

But they...are indeed not worthy of the word 'official'.

The excessive number of officials and personnel in the later Song Dynasty was so ridiculous that these messy things were not regarded as serious officials.

The imperial bureaucracy was immature and the number of officials was much smaller, let alone their ability to count.

It can be said that Ying Zheng's round of official transfers has directly nullified most of the achievements of Liusha's years of management in the Beidi officialdom.

However, this does not mean that Liusha has completely lost its ability to control the officialdom of the North.

Because Yingzheng's operation is actually very reluctant - officials represent power, and power cannot be left in a vacuum for a moment.

After Ying Zheng disposes of the original officials, he must immediately arrange for a new group of officials to take over.

Not all the officials who were punished were transferred out of the Northland, but Ying Zheng still needed at least thirty people to fill in.

But he definitely can't find so many manpower now - to be more precise, he can't find so many new officials who are reliable and loyal to him in a short period of time to fill the hole in the Northland.

Compared with the problem of manpower shortage that has only begun to take shape after years of hard work, the number of officials in the empire has always been stretched thin and has never been enough.

Otherwise, the central court's control over local areas would not be diminishing day by day - there were not enough available officials, and Ying Zheng could only promote a large number of local prominent families to serve as officials.

This group of people are all lowly people. They were all loyal when the empire was at its peak, but as soon as they noticed the weakness of the empire, they would immediately start to obey and violate the empire.

Now even the censor system responsible for supervision has collapsed.

Ying Zheng did not have the manpower to rectify the official administration, otherwise he would not stabilize the local rule through repeated patrols.

Therefore, the newly recruited officials in the North—whether they were newly selected from the local area or transferred from other places—were definitely not completely loyal to the emperor.

People who are not emperors are easy to handle for quicksand.

Of course, Yingzheng can also transfer some loyal enough officials from other places to curb the redevelopment of quicksand in the North.

However, this kind of operation of tearing down the east wall to repair the west wall is generally not done unless it is absolutely necessary.

In addition to Fusu and the northern officials, there was another person who was blamed - General Meng Tian of the Great Wall Army.

Ying Zheng reprimanded Meng Tian for his lax military management, which led to internal corruption. He dealt with a group of officers and deprived Meng Tian of some of his military power.

The Great Wall Army is a colloquial name, but it is actually the Northern Frontier Army.

After the war in Henan ended, some of the northern border troops were sent to guard various border areas to prevent the wolves from invading the south again, while some were assigned to build the Great Wall - this is also the origin of the name Great Wall Legion.

Ying Zheng transferred all the soldiers sent to guard the border to Wang Li, and ordered him to be fully responsible for the defense of the northern border. Meng Tian only retained the part of building the Great Wall, and his responsibilities were focused on supervising the work.

As a result, Meng Tian's military power was reduced by about 30%.

Originally he had 200,000 northern frontier troops, but now he only has about 150,000 true 'Great Wall Legion' left.

As soon as these three pieces of news came out, it can be said that the whole world was shocked.

Anyone who knows something about the situation in the North knows that the emperor has struck a big blow at Liusha.

The warning to the eldest son Fusu further reduced his already low hopes of becoming a crown prince.

The redeployment of officials significantly reduced Shifting Sands' influence over the North.

As for Meng Tian's changes in military power, let alone the most fatal blow.

To be honest, although many forces expected that Ying Zheng's northern tour would definitely cause conflicts with Liusha, they really thought that Ying Zheng would kill him so decisively.

This makes people suspect that Ying Zheng is taking advantage of the absence of Liusha leader Gu Xun to deliberately weaken the power of his men.

Of course, what Ying Zheng thinks is not important. What is important is that in everyone's eyes, this represents Ying Zheng's intention to further weaken the eldest son's faction, which has gradually lost power.

They have even begun to take action against the Imperial Preceptor Gu Xun - considering that there were rumors of conflicts between the Emperor and the Imperial Preceptor a long time ago, this is a reasonable situation.

The emperor's attitude often determines how the people below him behave.

Those who responded fastest to Ying Zheng's operations were the officials of the central court.

The eldest son's faction, which had been losing people, suddenly lost several important members - important in the eyes of outsiders because they have relatively high official positions.

It may be doubtful whether Ying Zheng has completely destroyed Liusha's layout in the North, but the voice of the eldest son's faction in the central court is indeed about to be reduced to zero.

This made some officials who were loyal to the eldest son Fusu extremely frustrated, and at the same time they couldn't help complaining about why Gu Xun disappeared at this juncture.

But Zhao Gao was happy.

He had been ordered to investigate Liusha's actions in the Northland, but in fact, he did not find enough evidence until the Northern Patrol Team entered Fushi City in Shangjun.

Although the intelligence collected from all parties indicates that Liusha's behavior has crossed the line, it is not sufficient.

It's not that it wasn't enough to convict Liusha, but it wasn't enough to make Ying Zheng determined to take ruthless action.

At that time, Zhao Gao was still very disappointed and worried that Ying Zheng would be merciful and go easy on Liu Sha and Fu Su Wang.

As a result, after Ying Zheng and Fu Su met, they began to use thunderous methods on Liu Sha, slashing hard to bleed.

For Zhao Gao, the second most important thing was how much trauma Ying Zheng's move caused to Liusha. The most important thing was that it almost completely eliminated the possibility of Fusu getting involved in the throne.

As for the damage suffered by Liusha... As long as Gu Xun doesn't fall, any damage to Liusha will be considered harmless.

Zhao Gao saw this matter very clearly.

Unfortunately, he had no idea that Liusha really wanted to rebel, so he didn't know that Ying Zheng's actions had indeed brought a lot of trouble to Liusha.

Fortunately... we are still at a level where we can accept it and deal with it as soon as possible.

………………

Fusu was ordered by orders and transferred by officials in the north, but it had little impact on the people.

What difficulties the officials encountered are beyond the scope of ordinary Baixin's concern.

Although Fusu's reputation among the people is very good, and the people generally don't want anything to happen to Fusu, but... he just received a scolding from his own father, which is not a big deal in the eyes of the people!

As for the officials in the North, no one cared about them at all.

After Ying Zheng left, Fusu did not move back to his mansion.

The former 'eldest son's mansion' was sealed by Fusu because it had served as the emperor's temporary palace. He was both a minister and a son, and it was not suitable for him to overstep his bounds.

Fusu built himself a new mansion long ago. It was much smaller in size, but it was enough for him.

The land in the North is not valuable, and the labor in the North is not valuable either - of course, it doesn't matter if it is valuable. Fusu spends his own money to build a house, and it is no one else's turn to comment.

In Fusu's new mansion, Fusu sat on the main seat of the reception room with a slightly dejected expression, and said to Meng Tian who was sitting next to him:

"General Meng, this time Fusu acted willfully and implicated you."

"I'm so sorry."

"Young Master, you are serious." Meng Tian quickly raised his hand and saluted and replied, "This is the last general who is incompetent. I am ashamed of His Majesty the Emperor, and I am also ashamed of Your Highness, Your Highness."

The reason why Meng Tian was sentenced was because of corruption in the military and his poor governance.

And the root cause of this so-called corruption is the batch of materials that Meng Tian took over from Han Fei.

There was a huge problem with that batch of supplies. Although neither Luo Sheng nor Black Ice Platform captured key clues or information that could lead to the truth, those supplies were ultimately difficult to explain clearly.

Ying Zheng did not get to the bottom of the matter, but only punished him with minor punishments and admonished him in the name of "corruption."

Although the consequences seemed serious, in fact... Meng Tian didn't really care.

Military power is a very fictitious thing.

There is only one person in the empire who actually holds the military power, and that is Emperor Ying Zheng - he has even put aside the position of Taiwei, the highest military officer.

Meng Tian's prestige among the Northern Frontier Army was very high, but it was only a high prestige.

These 200,000 border troops essentially obeyed the central court's orders and the emperor's orders, not his Meng Tian's orders.
To be continued...