During the imperial ceremony, the emperor faced the ambiguous behavior of the three imperial brothers, which quickly attracted the attention of the "careful" ministers.
So, the next day, someone started to make a circumstantial report: Since your Majesty came to the throne, you have made outstanding achievements and shown kindness to all over the world. Even the plants, birds and animals have been deeply blessed by your Majesty's rain and dew. However, when the late emperor was still alive, he only made eight sons king.
However, the emperor's tenth brother was Zhi, and his eleventh brother was Yue. They also left behind his son Ji. Because they were young, they were not granted a title.
Now, Your Majesty reigns over the world and is blessed everywhere.
It's time to bestow such a great favor on the emperor's tenth brother, Zeng.
These memorials were sent to Lantai, where Liu Che gave instructions and kept them without publishing them.
The emperor's attitude immediately excited everyone in the government and the public.
For the courtiers, the Liu She brothers and their mother had better get out of Chang'an City immediately and go wherever they want! Just don't stay in Chang'an City anymore and be an eyesore!
The reason is simple because the emperor's eldest son is now thriving in the palace, and the remaining concubines have also arrived one after another, and it is very likely that they will give birth to heirs for the emperor in the next few months.
Although they are not legitimate sons.
But at least the continuity of the country has been guaranteed.
In this way, the sons of the late emperor continued to stay in Chang'an and Weiyang Palace.
How unbecoming is this!
The most important thing is that if the sons of the late emperor continue to stay in Chang'an, then in order to show that they are indeed loyal ministers, the officials will not even dare to go to the harem at will.
It is not at all convenient for everyone to secretly observe and seduce the prince, and it is even more inconvenient for people to place bets.
Therefore, for most of the courtiers, the late emperor's heirs and concubines should get away as far as possible and don't stay in the palace and become an eyesore.
So Zong Zheng, Liu Li, and Taichang Dou Pengzu immediately followed suit.
Liu Li even went so far as to directly submit a report and clearly stated: I asked the historian to choose an auspicious day and follow the etiquette, and the censor reported the map of Kanyu. He told the story as before.
Although he didn't clearly and directly say that he wanted to be crowned king, it was actually made very clear.
Let the historian choose the date and the censor choose the map. This is the posture of feuding the country and establishing the state.
But this time, Liu Che's answer was no longer ambiguous.
He replied in Liu Li's memorial: The sacrificial system said: In ancient times, Yu was granted the title of a nobility, and Yu tasted the fields. Therefore, Zuo Chuan rewarded spring and summer. I will follow the three generations! (Note)
Although there is no explicit consent, the signal is very clear.
That is, the emperor agreed to canonize the three imperial brothers as kings, but it cannot be done now, until summer.
The reason is also very noble.
This is how the three generations of ancestors played...
After receiving this instruction, Taichang Dou Pengzu immediately asked for instructions: If I die, please move the emperor's tenth brother's pig to the East Palace for rest.
If someone who doesn't understand the traditions of the Han Dynasty sees Dou Pengzu's request, he might think that the East Palace wants to intervene.
But in fact, before the princes and kings were canonized, they all moved to the East Palace or the east gate of Weiyang Palace. Finding a house for them was a very normal and reasonable behavior.
Because the east belongs to gold, gold is Mao, and Mao and gold combine to form Liu.
Any prince who is granted the title of king by the royal family must first live in the East.
Liu Bang first granted the title to his disciples outside the east gate of Luoyang.
At the end of the Western Han Dynasty, Wang Mang usurped the throne, and there were prophecies among the people that said: Liu Xiu sent troops to arrest Wu Dao, and he became the emperor by cultivating gold and cultivating virtue.
Of course, this very unscientific prophecy actually came true in the end.
This can only show that Axiu is indeed a son of the plane.
Liu Che was naturally aware of this tradition, so he replied: Yes!
From then on, the status of quasi-vassal kings of Liu She and other three younger brothers was officially established in terms of legal principles and procedures.
The Shaofu immediately began to make court uniforms and crowns for the three quasi-vassal kings.
Then, the focus of the matter changed from the title of king to the title of the three emperor brothers.
To be honest, the three imperial brothers are all younger brothers. According to the Han family tradition, the eldest son and the younger brother are the two types of people who get the most advantage.
For example, the King of Qi, Liu Fei, had the largest, most extensive and richest kingdom among the Gaodi disciples, while the King of Huainan, Liu Chang, was the most favored by Taizong.
But now in China, in fact, all the traditional sacred lands and wealthy areas are already owned.
In fact, there is not much room for choice among the three emperor brothers.
There is only one Kingdom of Zhao available for selection.
Of course, if that doesn't work, we can still restore traditional kingdoms like Wu and Han.
However, in the homeland of Wu, Jinshang’s younger brother Liu Yan was in charge, and in the homeland of Korea, the acting king Liu Deng had always been close to Jinshang. In these two places, it was impossible and would not be possible for the new king to follow the two followers.
The king, who was close to the emperor, was fighting for territory.
So, someone in the imperial court said: Let's just use the three emperor brothers to take charge of North Korea, Xinhua, and Liaodong, restore the past Liaodong Kingdom, and the nobles of the Tian family to guard the territory of the Han family. This is very good, and it is also in line with the rule of Chengkang.
.
Others say: The new land of the East China Sea can be used to seal the emperor's brother and educate the barbarians.
But Liu Che had no time to pay attention to this matter anymore.
After the Imperial Ceremony, various national policies have been determined to be reformed.
The first person to bear the brunt is Ma Zheng.
For three consecutive days, Liu Che called all the officials in charge of horse administration from the three yamen, Taipu, Shaofu and Da Nong, to a meeting to assign tasks and discuss the reform of horse administration.
Even if he, with the dignity of the emperor, personally went to the scene and forced all the heads of the three bureaucratic groups to have a meeting and discuss it.
But the effect is not ideal either.
Liu's Ma Zheng policy has been implemented for sixty years.
In the past sixty years, four generations of emperors have made countless patches on this system.
Today, this system is like an old computer that has been used for five or six years, with countless system junk and various redundant programs accumulated. Every time it is run, it makes a creaking sound.
Therefore, if you want to download the latest Dota2 game on this computer and play happily with your friends, this is undoubtedly a difficult thing to do.
If your computer is like this, you can choose to replace it with a brand new Apple laptop.
However, if it is a national system.
Then we can only slowly clean up and straighten out the shortcomings bit by bit, and give it a brand new power engine to make it run better and faster.
However, things in the world are always beautiful to think about, but they are very difficult to implement in practice.
This is what Ma Zheng is like.
As a system that has received the most resources and the most policy support since the establishment of the Han Dynasty, it has never been affected by changes in the dynasty and the situation.
As of today, the Han family's horse administration system is full of parasites and vampires.
The entire profit chain is covered with all kinds of landmines. If you are not careful, you will step on them and detonate them.
Even Liu Che can only be careful and tiptoe to dismantle those landmines one by one and clean up the parasites that are lying on the country.
For example, the main source of funds for the Han Dynasty's horse administration was suanfu.
When Liu Bang ordered Xiao He to formulate laws, he first stipulated the purpose of calculating taxes: for the purpose of managing the country's treasury, troops, chariots and horses.
The popular understanding is the national defense military tax.
Mainly used in military and horse administration systems.
To this day, even after Liu Che promised to "never increase taxes", the Han Dynasty's annual tax income is as high as nearly 200,000 yuan, which is almost half of the national fiscal revenue.
It is undoubtedly the largest source of wealth, including land tax and commercial tax. The total amount is not as good as the amount of tax.
After this year, salt and iron revenue may catch up.
Such a large amount of money is all invested in the military field?
If this is really the case, then the Liu family can pat their chests and shout to Kim Sam Pang: I am the one who pioneered military politics, okay?
Therefore, in fact, this income has always been kept quietly in the Shaofu. It exists as the emperor's private money.
The Shaofu firmly grasped this financial source and did not give any chance to outsiders to interfere.
The emperors of the past dynasties were very clear about the use of this money.
Basically, the current wages of all horse gardens, ranches and horse administration system personnel in the Han Dynasty come from this money.
But the problem is that the person in charge of horse administration in the Han Dynasty is the Taipu Yamen...
This brings up a problem.
Why does Taipu Yamen ask for money from the young master?
This is undoubtedly a very difficult question. Anyone who has witnessed the grand event of the Celestial Dynasty’s running team entering Beijing in later generations should not be in a similar situation and want to pry food from others? This is not an ordinary difficulty.
Therefore, in the past sixty years, all Han Dynasty horse gardens were built after the emperor ordered them.
The Taipu Yamen is only responsible for the operation of these horse gardens, and the sources of funds are all taken from the account of the Shaofu after special approval by the emperor.
Although this avoided waste, it also caused another consequence: the construction of horse administration was extremely slow.
Historically, the cavalry development of the Han army almost came to a standstill before Liu Che came to power.
The doctrine of large infantry and invincibility of bows and crossbows pervades the military.
This is certainly conservatism at work, but it does not mean that the government is ineffective and the country has no horses at all.
It wasn't until Father Liu Che came to power that he vigorously built Ma Yuan.
According to historical records, during the reign of Emperor Jing, a total of 36 new horse parks were built, and the country raised hundreds of thousands of horses.
Before this, the Han family's war horses had always been a big problem.
Today, Liu Che's father died early. His main political achievement, only four of the thirty-six horse parks, have been built, and the total number of horses raised is only thirty to forty thousand.
In the three years since Liu Che took the throne, he has accelerated his horse breeding.
However, the number of horses in stock is only about 100,000, and it can only supply about 10,000 war horses to the army every year.
This is undoubtedly not possible.
Moreover, the Shaofu's bureaucracy is deeply entrenched, making it difficult to respond quickly, which also poses constraints to the development of horse administration.
Therefore, Liu Che decided to reform Ma Zheng and allocate more resources to Taipu so that it would have greater autonomy and flexibility.
But the Shaofu will never give up his power, and Liu Che himself will not go so far as to transfer the right to use the funds from the Shaofu to the outer dynasty. An emperor without money is worse than a puppet.
Therefore, Liu Che called the Shaofu and Taipu Yamen together and asked them to organize a committee-like organization to review and approve the funds of the Ma government and accept Liu Che's territory.
With the authority of the emperor, Liu Che personally went to the throne and reluctantly agreed to this request with the help of the young master and the imperial servant.
But what happened next was not that simple.
The servant said, since we are responsible for the country's political affairs, then we should be the ones in charge of this organization. Young Master, you just need to provide the money.
The young man replied with four words: I will do your best to your mother.
Then the fight started.
The meeting was then suspended by force.
For three days in a row, the meeting started with a fight and ended with a fight.
The servant Yuan Ang and the young master Liu She were both beaten in the fight, with their noses bruised and their faces swollen, and their clothes were disheveled.
After watching the show for three days, Liu Che finally understood it.
Neither the young master nor the imperial servants wanted reform.
Why?
Because reform will destroy the existing order and cause damage to the interests of many people, especially a system as large and complex as the Ma government system, where various interest groups are intertwined.
No aristocratic bureaucrat dares to single-handedly fight against the interest groups at the top and bottom of the entire system.
Therefore, they simply use this method to delay it until it can no longer be delayed and people have nothing to say. Then they will push the boat along and reach a compromise.
In this way, they perfectly passed the blame to Liu Che, the emperor. It's not that we didn't do our best, but His Majesty was under too much pressure and had to do this.
Well, this is just the beginning, and we haven’t gotten into the sensitive areas and core issues of Ma Zheng yet!
The young master and the servant have already used this method to delay.
"If I want to use the 'Returning Horse Order', why don't you jump up?" Liu Che thought in disbelief.
According to the current progress, Liu Che feels that if these bureaucrats continue to waffle, it may not be possible to discuss specific horse administration measures and system innovations by this time next year.
Therefore, Liu Che decided to get rid of these bureaucrats.
"Prepare the chariots, horses and ceremonial guards. Tomorrow I will patrol the horseback and Chenghua stables, and send a letter to the prime minister, the imperial censor, and Zhi Jinwu. Order them to accompany me tomorrow to inspect the horse administration of the Han Dynasty!" Liu Che said to Wang Dao
Order: "I order the Prime Minister to do so. Do not reveal the place where my general is patrolling!"
"No!" Wang Dao followed the order.
…………………………
The next day, Liu Che's emperor's car drove out of Weiyang Palace for the first time on the New Year's Day of the third year of Yuan De.
Subsequently, the prime minister, the imperial censor, and Zhi Jinwu successively led their main officials and subordinate officials, each with subordinate officials of Cao Qianshi or above.
The mighty ceremonial guard appeared on the royal road and immediately attracted the attention of the whole city.
The emperor's first inspection tour after the imperial ceremonial ceremony held a connotation that made everyone dare not relax.
After the emperor's guard of honor left the imperial street, he immediately went straight to the riding stables, causing countless people to immediately smell a strange smell.
Since the Han Dynasty established Ding, the entire horse administration system has been divided into two parts.
One is the inner stable dedicated to serving the emperor, empress, queen mother, princes and officials.
The inner stables are in Chang'an City. The horses raised in the inner stables are basically public horses or royal horses that serve the emperor and ministers.
It has always received the most attention and the most inspections from superiors.
In history, the famous allusion, clever words to explain away sins, happened in the Weiyang stable in the inner stable.
Shangguan Jie, the commander of Weiyang stable, perfectly used his wit and cunning to teach everyone a lesson. The name of this lesson is 'How to reverse the negative impression of the leader on you'.
In comparison, poor Yi Zong had his whole family killed by Xiaozhu for the same reason: "You thought I would never do this again", which only shows that Yi Zong is too honest...
In sharp contrast to the inner stables are the outer stables.
According to tradition, the horses in the outer stables are mainly used as war horses for the army.
Except for the military, few people pay attention to it.
Even if you want to pay attention, you need time and energy.
Because the outer stables are basically outside Chang'an City, the nearest riding stable is half a day's journey from Chang'an City.
It would be good if the prime minister and the imperial censor occasionally think of it and send an official or representative to check it out.
As for the emperor?
Then it would be even rarer to go on a patrol.
For a long time, the three external stables, including horse riding, Chenghua and Lu, have always been controlled by the servants, lacking supervision and full of problems.
It took Liu Che three hours. When he arrived at the riding stable, the riding stable was already in a state of chaos.
Obviously, everyone in the stable did not expect that the emperor would launch a sudden attack, and he also brought three giants, the prime minister, the imperial censor, and Zhi Jinwu, to accompany the patrol.
This immediately made the riding stable Ling He Cheng and the stable warden below so scared that they wet their pants.
Almost all of them thought that someone had discovered what they had done secretly in the past!
Fortunately, they were not frightened into silence, and they immediately realized that if that were the case, those who came would not be the emperor's guard of honor, but the officials of Ting Wei and Si Cao.
Even so, these guys all trembled and crawled to both sides of the road in front of the riding stable door, praying in their hearts that the emperor and the prime minister were just here for a casual look and would not examine them carefully.
But, they never expected it.
As soon as the emperor's imperial driver stopped, a group of Lantai ministers immediately came to see the pastor responsible for supervising the operation of the riding stables with their abacus and various pens.
Please cooperate with me regarding the number of horses and entry and exit documents..."
Riding the stable order, he fainted and fell to the ground on the spot.
For no other reason than because the number of horses registered in the riding stable is 5,071, but in fact, there are only 4,000 at most in the entire ranch.
Liu Che saw this situation from the imperial edict.
This was not unexpected at all.
In fact, Liu Che had already investigated it before coming.
The archives of Weiyang Palace are filled with files from Xiu Yiwei's spies and reports on Ma Zheng's situation.
Liu Che knew better, what was the purpose of his trip?
Following the ancient wisdom of Emperor Taizong of the Celestial Dynasty, he patrolled the south to pacify the world's discussion.
If you don't prick the pus out of something and put it in front of the world, then the bureaucracy will definitely delay it and block it if it can.
"The country raises horses, and it costs tens of millions of money and grain every year. The common people in the world are given a hundred and twenty coins as a tax, and the common people use their acreage to produce grass to feed the country and raise horses. The poem goes: Worrying about misery, thinking about the country
"Sorry, as a parent of the common people, I should ask for my people: The country collects custard every year to calculate the tax, which is calculated in hundreds of thousands. Are all these money and custard used for horse administration?" Liu Che
He said to Zhou Yafu, Chao Cuo, and Zhidu who were accompanying the inspection, and then slowly stepped off the cart, straightened his hat, held the Emperor's Sword in his hand, looked at the guys kneeling on both sides of the road, shivering, and then ordered
: "Pass my order, count all the horses on the register, and check all official documents and records!"
Liu Che turned around and said to Zhijinwu Zhidu: "Zhijinwu, I have authorized you to investigate to the end. The minister will cooperate with you. You must not slack off or shirk the blame!"
"Nuo!" Zhidu and Ji An immediately bowed down.
As for Chao Cuo, the imperial censor, his eyebrows were almost flying with laughter at this moment.
In any case, I'm afraid that my servant Yuan An will be in trouble this time.
And Yuan Si is in trouble, which is the best news for Chao Cuo! (To be continued.)
ps: Note: Yu, in ancient Chinese, is the term for a large-scale national sacrifice, which is usually held in midsummer. The meaning of this sentence is that in ancient times, royal robes were usually given during spring and summer sacrifices, and land was given in autumn and winter.
