The main factors that determine the final outcome of the war, in later generations' terms, can be summarized as seven major factors: military, economic, political, natural environmental conditions, nature of the war, diplomacy and international assistance, and subjective guidance capabilities of both parties.
It is the highest level factor that determines the outcome of a war.
Although in this era, war may not require so many factors to be considered, Zhao Xi is very cautious.
Because, for the Song Dynasty, it really could not and did not dare to suffer any more defeats in its battle with the Northern Liao Dynasty.
The Song Dynasty could no longer afford the experience of failure in the battle against Northern Liao. Otherwise, the little confidence built up in the Battle of Hedong would collapse.
Zhao Xi hopes to be as thorough as possible, and also hopes that the cabinet can be more understanding.
Perhaps compared to the previous cabinet, this one is a little more radical, but it is not unscrupulous.
Zhao Xi still believed that the cabinet could handle the matter properly when formulating the strategy for the Fourth Prince's team was left to the cabinet.
This was originally a casual move, and it could also test Bei Liao's reaction... The issue of sea power was not taken seriously in this era, whether it was the Guo Dynasty or Bei Liao.
…
The government has never been completed, one thing is one thing or another. And due to the changes in the government over the years, everything has become more and more complicated, both at the local level and at the court.
It's just that some things can be decided by the chief official of the imperial court, some need to be discussed by the specifically responsible yamen, some can be decided by the cabinet, and some need to be discussed by the cabinet.
However, all matters, as long as they are reported to the imperial court, require the king's approval.
This is still the situation after Zhao Xi implemented the three-level decision-making system. If the previous system were left alone, a king would not have any leisure time at all.
It's not that Zhao Xi is lazy. In Zhao Xi's opinion, if all affairs of a dynasty are decided by one person, it is not just a matter of exhausting the decision-maker to death, but the process itself heralds the demise of the people and the government.
Zhao Xi doesn't want this.
Therefore, any matter that can be discussed by the cabinet and the king now is definitely considered a big deal. For example, when the Guochao and Bei Liao will fight.
As for other matters that require the king's approval... Zhao Xi rarely changes the conclusions of the cabinet and the six ministries and nine ministers. To a certain extent, the current imperial government has adapted to or fully understood Zhao Xi's governing philosophy.
In today's imperial court, the heads of various government offices rarely bother the officials.
Zhao Xi wants to know more about the dynasty, often through the form of reporting.
Although it is not possible to implement the so-called freedom of speech at present...in fact, there is no absolute freedom of speech at any time.
Relatively speaking, today's imperial dynasty still has a certain degree of freedom of speech. After all, those who can speak out in the newspaper can be regarded as scholars, and can also be classified as the scholar class.
Zhao Xi also advocates a certain degree of freedom of speech in a subtle way.
Therefore, Zhao Xi raised the power of handling incoming reports from the state to the court level, which means that local prefectures and counties are not allowed to interfere with the operation of incoming reports.
Moreover, the power of handling the reports was also handed over to the internal control department, which was jointly managed with the Supervisory Yamen.
In this way, it also gave scholars the right to criticize local governance, and at the same time, they also had certain supervision.
Of course, it is a common understanding in the country that the supervisory yamen are the emperor's personal soldiers, which is equivalent to the officials being the only ones who decide to report comments.
Zhao Xi hopes that in this way, he can understand the entire dynasty to a certain extent.
Today's king's secretaries and supervisors are already a huge team. They are no longer the three or five people who messed around in the early days of the country and simply recorded official remarks.
Today's secretarial supervisors need to sift out the information needed by the officials, or content related to the government of the country, from the arrival reports from all the prefectures and counties of the country.
In this way, Zhao Xi has three lines of supervision over the entire dynasty: the Imperial City Department, the Supervisory Yamen and the private sector.
"The official family, the internal reference has compiled and asked for an audience..."
Zeng Bu is now the chief editor of the Internal Affairs Bureau. When it does not involve supervising the general Yamen affairs, he has the discretion to report purely on matters related to speech.
In other words, the chief editor of Internal Reference is more like the person in charge of the public opinion of the country, and Internal Reference is becoming more and more like a court yamen.
However, Zeng Bu rarely played alone or in pairs. In other words, he never played alone.
In the past, Cai Que was in charge of internal affairs, and he often joined in the fun and followed Fan Chunren to meddle in government affairs... All cabinet discussions must have the presence of the chief inspector of the supervising yamen.
Since Zeng Bu took charge of internal affairs, perhaps because of the rapid development of the Guochao Newspaper, which made him busy with affairs, or perhaps because of his different personal way of doing things, cabinet discussions rarely occur.
Unless Fan Chunren or the cabinet is called by name to be present.
As for meeting officials alone, that's even less common.
Today, Zhao Xi was a little surprised that he left the cabinet and the Supervisory Office alone to meet with him alone.
It's probably something simple, about remarking on repayment or something like that.
Zhao Xi also attaches great importance to public opinion, not to mention that the imperial court now has plans to fight against Liao and does not want any noise in public opinion.
Zhao Xi originally wanted to summon Zeng Bu for a while to ask him to pay attention to this issue. But he didn't expect to come by himself.
"I'm here to see the official..."
"Oh...Give me a seat...~Zixuan, sit down and talk..."
Except for the elders, other ministers still need to be given a seat by the official.
"Officials, there is an article that Jingzhao Mansion is afraid to make a decision on, so it asks the Internal Reference for instructions. After I read it, I don't know how to deal with it..."
Zeng Bu also knew that public opinion belonged to the officials, and all reports from the imperial court were the mouthpieces of the officials, or the imperial court.
In this regard, after Zeng Bu took office as the internal reference, he stipulated that all articles involving the imperial court must be submitted to the internal reference for review.
Zhao Xi recognized this rule and even endorsed Zeng Bu with an edict.
I didn’t expect there to be articles that even Zeng Bu couldn’t decide on.
"Oh, who is the author? At what level is the article written? What is the article talking about? Or is it criticizing someone? Or is it criticizing an official who is too high-ranking?"
Zhao Xi thought about it and found that these possibilities were the only ones that made it difficult for Zeng Bu to make a decision.
"Officially, this writer's name is Zong Ze and Zong Rulin. He did not arrive in a fixed state capital to write this article, or it may be said that this writer is on a study tour."
"After I saw this article, I compared it with the name and found many of his articles. In the past, they were all articles about study tours or local customs."
"This time, it is a long article discussing the strategy of the country and the dynasty. I dare not make any arbitrary judgments."
Zhao Xi was in a trance when he heard the name. He didn't listen to what Zeng Bu said next. He didn't even notice that an internal supervisor had already presented the manuscript that Zeng Bu had brought...
Zongze, this name that Zhao Xi is familiar with, is actually a copywriter.