Chapter 962 The Tang Dynasty can only have one voice
"Yes, I should have known that I shouldn't have sent the report letter to him in the first place. I should have sent it directly to the Central Inspectorate. There are people from us in the Central Inspectorate. Although the rank is lower, they can intervene in some key details.
It’s enough.”
"Oh, but I wanted to take advantage of Gong Wenbao's eagerness for promotion, and we also have more manpower in the Chengtian Mansion Inspectorate, so it will be easier to promote this matter, but I didn't expect that Gong Wenbao would be so cautious!"
"If we continue to let them investigate now, I'm afraid this matter will end in vain. It's a pity that we have such a good opportunity. Without Chen Lifu as the trigger, there is probably no hope for what we want to do!"
"Forget it, it can't be done if it can't be done. Anyway, we don't expect to succeed all at once. If it doesn't work this time, we will just look for opportunities next time. This huge tax department is full of loopholes. There are always loopholes.
I can find another chance!"
"It's true, that's all. If you fail, just fail. But this matter won't be involved, right?"
"Don't worry, they won't be found on us. At most, they will be pushed out and supported by a few people!"
"That's good. Forget it. News has come back from Jiujiang in the past few days that the war in the southwest is not going well. I'm afraid you and I will be busy again by then!"
"Yes, even though the Holy Emperor is personally stationed in Jiujiang, the final victory in the Southwest War will undoubtedly belong to our Tang Dynasty King Division. However, if this war lasts for another month, it will cost millions more taels of silver.
Now that the war is not going well, I am afraid that at the budget meeting at the end of the month, those warriors will start talking like a lion again!"
"The military accounts for the vast majority of annual financial expenditures. This situation must not continue. After the Southwest Campaign is over, military expenditures must be reduced!"
"Yes, I don't know what the adults think, but they have always been conniving with the military and the tax department!"
"Yes, the tax department should have been split up a long time ago. A single tax department holds the four major powers of tax collection, finance, budget, and salary. In time, it will definitely become a disaster for our Datang!"
"That is, the military now spends too much military expenditure every year, and it is okay to spend so much military expenditure, but now the military generals are too domineering and have their own system. In addition to recruiting troops, my cabinet
Besides, there is no way to restrain them!
Now that the Holy Emperor is in court, he is naturally not afraid of any disturbance caused by these warriors, but what about in the future? How can we restrain these generals? "
When these two people were talking, their expressions were full of worry!
At the same time, outside Jiujiang City, two knights were galloping on horseback, not caring about other pedestrians on the official road. However, after other people saw these two people, no one dared to stop them. At most, they just casually said
Just a few curse words.
Because of the costumes of these two knights, many people are very familiar with them. They are military messengers!
According to the laws of the Tang Dynasty, intercepting military messengers is a capital offense!
These two military messengers didn't care about the looks from everyone. They just kept their heads down and rode fast, because they carried urgent documents with them!
Three hundred miles urgent!
Although it is not as important as the 500-mile express delivery, it is still extremely important. Each station has a clear time limit for the 300-mile express delivery.
And if the time is exceeded, they will be sentenced to very severe punishment!
Among the urgent documents they carried, there was the Chen Lifu case report from Hantong!
This report was passed all the way from Jinling City to the west. After being relayed by countless knights, it finally arrived outside Jiujiang City!
This report will be delivered to the Holy Emperor soon.
Li Xuan saw the report half an hour later. In fact, before Li Xuan read the report, it had already arrived on Li Xuan's desk a quarter of an hour ago. However, because Li Xuan
A small meeting delayed the time.
He just met with a group of Hubei officials such as the Governor of Hubei and the Prefect of Hanyang Prefecture, mainly to discuss how to appease the local people in Hubei and restore people's livelihood in Hubei.
Although the Tang Dynasty has not yet captured the vast area of Hubei north of the Yangtze River, this does not prevent the Tang Dynasty from preparing many officials in Hubei in advance.
After the Tang Dynasty occupied the Huguang area south of the Yangtze River, it divided Huguang into two provinces, Hunan and Hubei, and Wuchang Prefecture belonged to Hubei.
Therefore, the Hubei Province of the Tang Dynasty was established very early, but for a long time, the only jurisdiction was Wuchang.
However, after the Southwest Campaign began, as usual, the Ministry of Civil Affairs prepared many officials from other places in Hubei in advance, including Hanyang Prefecture, Huangzhou Prefecture, Anlu Prefecture, De'an Prefecture, Xiangyang Prefecture, Xunyang Prefecture and other state governments.
The prefects, prefects, some county magistrates, and some major officials in the local government.
Now these officials have arrived from all over the country one after another, following behind the army, ready to take over their jurisdiction at any time.
In addition to these ordinary officials, there is also a very special group following the army. They are the tax department officials and the tax inspection team!
In fact, most of the time, tax department officials and tax inspection teams are the first to follow the army into various places.
So many officials are gathered here, and they will take over various parts of Hubei in the near future, so Li Xuan also pays more attention to them. He has held several meetings with them in the past two days, on the one hand, he expressed his support for Hubei.
On the other hand, it also allows them to be more cautious when governing Hubei in the future.
The Huguang area is Zhang Yue's base camp. After the Hunan area was captured by the Tang Dynasty, Zhang Yue focused his business on the Hubei area. According to Hantong's intelligence, Li Xuan also understood
We have arrived at a very special situation in Hubei.
This is still not good news for the Tang Dynasty!
That is, the majority of the gentry and landlord class in Hubei and the slightly influential families basically have children who have participated in Zhang Yue's command to supervise the bidding, or have served as civil servants under Zhang Yue's command.
Even if no one is involved, money and effort are basically provided.
In Hubei, Zhang Yue's supervision was almost integrated with the local gentry class!
Why did they become like this?
Because they were frightened by many policies implemented by the Tang Dynasty, especially the unified agricultural tax, which simply cost them their lives.
The Huguang area is already a huge agricultural production area in modern times. Although it is not as important as Jiangnan, it is not far from Huguang becoming famous all over the world.
This also led to the fact that the gentry at that time were not the same as the gentry in the Jiangnan area. In addition to land, they also had a lot of channels and methods to make money. At this time, the lifeblood of the gentry in Huguang was based on land.
, and they were the most determined to resist the Tang Dynasty's unified agricultural tax policy.
No expense is spared for this!
Otherwise, Zhang Yue would have become a rootless duckweed long ago. How could he have been stubbornly occupying Hubei under the strong pressure of the Tang Dynasty King, and the scale of his supervision would also be getting bigger and bigger.
In this complicated situation, after the Tang Dynasty Wangshi defeated Du Biao militarily, it would be very difficult to govern the Hubei region in the future.
By then, as long as even one percent of the gentry families resist, it will bring great trouble to the Tang Dynasty's rule in Hubei.
So Li Xuan has been holding meetings with Huguang officials continuously in the past few days to discuss how to better govern Hubei.
After the Hubei meeting, he returned to his office and saw the Chen Lifu case report sent by Han Tong!
Chen Lifu?
He had some impression of this name, and after recalling it for a while, he just remembered that it seemed that this person was the one who killed all the salt merchants in Yangzhou.
Moreover, I heard that Qian Zuoli of the Tax Department was quite fond of him. How could he have committed a crime? Moreover, he was so alerted that Han Tong sent him a report.
After opening the report and reading it, Li Xuan frowned!
Li Xuan doesn't care who Chen Lifu is!
To be honest, Li Xuan didn't care whether Chen Lifu had committed a crime or not, but what he was concerned about was that there were so many big shots involved behind this matter!
In this world, there are many people and things that can be hidden from Hantong, but in Jinling City, if you want to do something big and hide it from the eyes and ears of Hantong's eagles and dogs, it is very difficult.
Others don't know, but Li Xuan knows very well that Hantong's agents have ambushed almost every agency and every mid-level and senior official. In Jinling City alone, there are at least more than a thousand Hantong's agents.
spy!
Therefore, many people think that they do things very secretly, and only God and earth know that you know and I know, but it is true that in most cases Han Tong knows.
However, Hantong never disclosed any information in this regard, and refused other agencies to ask for any information. Therefore, outsiders knew that Hantong monitored hundreds of officials, but they did not know how strict Hantong's monitoring was.
And what Li Xuan sees now is what many people do that they think are secret!
Just this preliminary report was investigated by Hantong. At least three senior officials from the second rank were involved, and there were more than a dozen officials from the fourth rank and above who were connected. They were more or less involved.
They are all involved in Chen Lifu's case. Of course, this does not mean that they are all the ones who framed Chen Lifu, but that they are wrestling with each other on Chen Lifu's case.
Hantong's report, like Li Xuan himself, also did not care whether Chen Lifu had committed a crime or not. The focus of Hantong's report was not actually whether Chen Lifu was guilty or not, but focused on something that other outsiders would never have thought of.
, but this is something that Hantong has been closely monitoring: forming cliques for personal gain!
The significance of the existence of Hantong is to maintain Li Xuan's rule. Please note that it is to maintain Li Xuan's rule, not to maintain the rule of the Tang Dynasty!
Forming a party for personal gain would seriously endanger the imperial power, and further endanger Li Xuan's power!
Li Xuan has been strictly guarding against this kind of thing. He does not want the Donglin Party or other chaotic parties to appear in the political ecosystem of the Tang Dynasty.
There can only be one voice in the Tang Dynasty, my voice!
Regardless of whether it is the Donglin Party, the princeling party, or any other messy crony, Li Xuan will not allow it!
After Li Xuan read the report, he called the Hantong leader Li Daobing in, pointed at the report on the table and said only two words: strict investigation!