Demoness, where are you Fleeing to?
Chapter 799 - 658: Talent of the Prime Minister_1

Chapter 799: Chapter 658: Talent of the Prime Minister_1

After coming out of Qianqing Palace, Li Xuan looked around, searching for the figure of Luo Yan.

Although he currently had a pile of military and political affairs to deal with, at that moment, Luo Yan was the only thought in Li Xuan’s mind. Nothing else, not even the stability of the kingdom, was as important as her safety.

However, Li Xuan was taken aback when he realized that there was no trace of Luo Yan outside the palace.

Fortunately, Dugu Biluo, who had also been waiting outside the palace, walked over, "Young master, are you looking for Luo Yan? She has already returned to the Liudao Division with Hanyun and Qianqian. Today, the Capital City is in great chaos, with the appearance of many big demons. The Liudao Division is urgently short of manpower, so they were urgently recalled. She also asked me to tell you that she’s perfectly fine and not to worry. Dr. Jiang has also examined her, my father says that aside from being slightly weak, she isn’t severely injured, and her life element has not been greatly depleted."

Li Xuan furrowed his brows, but his anxiety was quickly alleviated.

If only Luo Yan had said that, he would definitely be suspicious. But since even Jiang Yunqi had confirmed it, her conditions was probably not severe.

However, it felt strange to him, why hadn’t Luo Yan’s life element take much damage even though she used the Rule of Extreme Heaven for three moments -- so much so that her hair had turned white?

Li Xuan was deeply puzzled, but he soon had no time to think about it.

As "County Prince Fenyang, Grand Dudu of the Five Armies, and Deputy Auxiliary of the Cabinet," Li Xuan swiftly got swamped by a sea of complex and complicated governmental affairs.

What was key was that this time, Dugu Biluo and Yue Qianqian couldn’t offer him much help.

The two could help him handle some of the official correspondences and miscellaneous tasks, but these major national issues were far beyond their capabilities.

Li Xuan cleverly assigned a few officials from the Hanlin Academy to serve as his "Zhongshu Sheren of Wuying Palace".

He was the one who had replaced Gao Gu as the Cifu, filling the position of "Daxueshi of Wuying Palace" that Gao Gu had previously held.

As for the role of the Zhongshu Sheren of Wuying Palace, it could be roughly equated to being his secretary.

According to tradition, in addition to helping Li Xuan handle government affairs, these Zhongshu Sheren were also responsible for encoding all sorts of official orders, books, registry pages, etc.

But for the time being, due to their initial inexperience, Li Xuan couldn’t rely on them.

In fact, Li Xuan would have preferred to call upon one or two experienced and talented officials from local governance, those who could "plug and play."

He was not fond of Jin Dynasty’s rule of "No Jinshi shall enter Hanlin, no Hanlin shall enter the Cabinet."

Since the Ying Emperor, all of the Prime Ministers in the Cabinet of The Ming Dynasty were officials from the Hanlin Academy, with the majority of them having no experience in local governance and lacking adequate administrative experience.

Li Xuan preferred the policy of the Tang and Song Dynasties -- "One must have served as a local official before entering the Central Imperial Offices."

But at the moment, Li Xuan was almost completely uninformed about the Jin Dynasty’s civilian bureaucracy. How could he know who was talented and trustworthy?

Moreover, the Jin Dynasty already had very few talented officials. If they were allocated to the central government, their abilities would be wasted.

However, there were indeed a few bright and insightful scholars in the current Hanlin Academy.

After some time in the Cabinet for training and experience, they would become more useful.

In the future, after they have gained experience in local governance for a few years, they hold great promise.

The first priority for Li Xuan to deal with at this time, however, was the fallout of the Zhengtong Emperor’s treason.

He had to pacify the unrest in the capital, clean up the scattered soldiers nearby the north Zhili, assess the civil and military officials, track down the fugitive traitors, arrange for the surrender of soldiers and so forth.

In the process, Li Xuan once again experienced the complexity of the court.

The Jingtai Emperor had just passed away, and matters related to quelling the rebellion had not yet concluded when political strife in the court surged like a tempest.

He intended to take advantage of the treason case to further suppress the northern military aristocracy but was restricted by Yu Jie and Shangshu of the Ministry of Punishments, Yu Shiyue.

Yu Shiyue did not want to see the treason case implicated too widely, and Yu Jie did not want the case to affect the stability of Jingying and army garrisons in Datong, Xuanfu, and other places.

The northern military aristocracy was entrenched deeply. Many of their tribe’s people were heavily involved in the frontier army and Jingying, which was under Yu Jie’s control.

Yu Jie did not intend to shield the northern military aristocracy, but thought there were other urgent matters.

In Yu Jie’s view, the most pressing issue at the moment was to stabilize the frontier, not to purge the army.

The Cabinet and several regent ministers also did not support him, as they didn’t want Li Xuan’s power in the military to expand indefinitely, thus losing the balance of power.

Wasn’t Li Xuan aware that harsh punishment of the northern military aristocracy could affect the morale of the soldiers in several border towns and could cause instability in the court?

But his actions weren’t solely motivated by a desire to settle the traitorous crimes of the noble military families, nor merely because he couldn’t trust them. Instead, he took a more comprehensive consideration of various aspects.

Therefore, Li Xuan put aside the trial and handling of the people involved for the time being, starting discussions with the officials about the rewards for the Shenji Regiment and the Jizhou Army, as well as the resettlement of the surrendering rebel army.

Especially the rebel army, can these over two hundred thousand traitors simply be let go?

What if they were incited to cause trouble again? Which among the regent ministers present could shoulder such responsibility?

In particular, the cabinet ministers could not trust those soldiers who participated in the rebellion from the five army camps and ten regiment camps.

But the families of these soldiers are distributed around Beijing. If they were to be sent back home, the consequences would be unimaginable.

The thought of over two hundred thousand former rebels swarming in and around the capital city made the cabinet ministers feel tingling on their scalp and sleepless at night.

Therefore, Li Xuan’s handling suggestion took the upper hand, dispatching two hundred and seventy thousand surrendered soldiers to clear the Jing-Hang Canal and remake the water conservancy along the line of north Zhili and the Yellow River.

These projects would take two years. After two years, all the soldiers of the Weisuo Army would be released back to their homes. The rebels from the Jingying Army, however, would be relocated in full with their families to newly settled areas such as Liaodong and Yunnan.

But the problem was, where would the money for these projects come from? The wages of these two hundred and seventy thousand surrendering soldiers could be saved, but the various materials, tools, and food needed for the projects all cost money.

Besides, they also needed to prepare tens of thousands of troops to watch over these surrendered soldiers and the relocation of the inhabitants would also cost money. They needed to provide the basic farming tools, grains, and seeds, etc for the families of the Jingying soldiers who were being relocated.

All these expenses totaled up to more than twenty million taels!

At this time, the cabinet ministers all thought of the same idea—confiscation of property!

This was the fastest way to acquire money among all financial means in the Jin Dynasty.

Then there was the expansion of the Shenji Camp—

"I plan to expand the Shenji Camp by ten regiments and recruit soldiers from Baoding, Shandong, Chuzhou, Yiwu, and other places. Now we are short of sixty-eight thousand people, each person requires a resettlement fee of a hundred and fifty taels. That’s a total of ten million taels of patterned silver."

In the Wenhua Palace where many ministers were gathered, Li Xuan reported the cost of the military expansion: "We are short of sixty thousand ’Rune Flint Lock Rifled Guns,’ which cost a total of thirty-six million taels of patterned silver. In addition, the majority of the original thirty-seven thousand flintlock guns have been used more than four hundred times and need to be properly maintained, re-lathed, or even barrel replaced, which is expected to require more than six million taels of silver."

"Furthermore, according to my projection, each one-hundred-eight-tenthousand-strong camp needs at least fifty field breechloader cannons, which amounts to a total of five hundred. We are still short of three hundred and thirty. Each one is priced at thirty thousand taels of patterned silver. This is just for guns and cannons, and there are various other armaments, such as clothing, armor, warhorses, etc., which will total not less than five million."

The Minister of Revenue for the left, who was called to attend the cabinet meeting, suddenly felt weak and short of breath. He smiled bitterly, "Prince Fenyang, these expenses total up to tens of millions of taels. My Ministry can’t afford it. We can try our best to raise funds for you, but at most we can free up a six million taels for you this year."

The Minister of Revenue for the left deliberately or unintentionally looked towards the chief eunuch, Qian Long, who was emotionless: "The late emperor was thrifty and did not hoard money. The inner court’s silver has always been freely borrowed by the outer court. Now there is less than three million left."

He thought for a moment: "We can sell some of the assets that are of no benefit to the royal family and open several mines. We can raise a five million taels for Prince Fenyang by the end of the year."

The death of Emperor Jingtai and the treason of Cao Jixiang filled Qian Long with excessive guilt and self-reproach.

At this moment, all he wants is to support Regent Princess and the imperial grandson, so that the Emperor’s throne stays steady forever—

"But increasing the military provision is currently the priority!"

Li Xuan’s sharp gaze swept over the officials: "Jin Dynasty faces threats from within, such as Prince Yi and the son of Prince Xiang. Externally, there are the hungry glares of Mengwu and the chieftain of Luchuan Tu Division. Without an elite force that can be summoned, capable of fighting and winning battles at the beck and call of the court, how can you all sleep easy?"

"In my opinion, having only the one hundred and eighty-thousand-strong Shenji camp is not enough. It would be best to select four to six more regiments from the Jingying Army, equip them with firearms and artillery, only then we can assure that the Jin Dynasty is as stable as Mount Tai."

He was still referring to himself as "this marquis," not used to his new title of "Prince Fenyang."

Shaofu Yu Jie twitched his face when he heard this. The scale in his mind was already tipping towards the ’silver’ side.

Except for confiscating properties, there doesn’t seem to be any other way—

To his knowledge, the relationships between the main and collateral branches of these northern military families were mostly discordant, even hostile.

As long as they can differentiate in this process, suppress and promote selectively, and disintegrate them, the problem seems not to be significant?

"I have consulted the leader of the Shenqi Union. She can accept the payment in installments over two years. However, the deposit that the court needs to pay this year cannot be less than thirty million taels."

Li Xuan’s eyes twinkled, delivering the final blow to the ministers: "As long as the court has one hundred and seventy thousand flintlock rifles in hand, I swear that I can put down all domestic renegades and sweep away all foreign enemies from north to south."

Wang Wen, who has once again entered the cabinet, could not help but fall into solemn contemplation after hearing this. Then he looked at the ministers and said, "Concerning the disposition of the rebellious military officials, I think we can discuss further. And the subsequent interrogations should be strict and severe, isn’t it?"

Grand Secretary Chen Xun looked at Li Xuan with a peculiar look. He thought that Li Xuan was not only astoundingly talented in military affairs but also unexpectedly gifted in handling politics.

Although Jingtai Emperor’s decision to directly promote him to the Deputy Auxiliary was capricious, judging from Li Xuan’s maneuver, this Prince Fenyang was certainly a prime minister material.