Chapter 489: Rank and Rating

In mid-April, the Song Dynasty envoys crossed the Strait of Malacca and sailed towards the Chola Dynasty on the Indian Peninsula.

In the Han Dynasty, kings in the Western Regions often colluded with the Xiongnu and killed Han Dynasty envoys.

So Zhang Qian, Fu Jiezi, Ban Chao and others went to the Western Regions to form alliances and defeat the Western Regions, so that the Western Regions united under the leadership of the Han Dynasty.

Now that Srivijaya attacked the Song Dynasty Navy, expelled and even wanted to kill the Song Dynasty envoys, it had already offended the Song Dynasty's thundering wrath.

However, the Song Dynasty envoys had important matters to attend to and had no time to unite with Brunei, Java and other countries to encircle and suppress Srivijaya.

So they could only do it themselves.

Just as Srivijaya King Silichi thought.

The Strait of Malacca is the farthest distance that the Song Dynasty Navy can radiate at present.

Logistics supply is difficult and the cost is high.

If he can eliminate the Song army in Pu Luozhong, the main force of the Song army in the South China Sea will attack in a large scale, which will cost a lot of money.

If Srivijaya is not destroyed, the Song navy will not be able to come here often.

At present, the Song army in Puluozhong has built fortresses, houses, and ports. Every three months, supply ships are sent from Guangzhou to Puluozhong to transport various materials and people willing to settle there.

Even the soldiers in Puluozhong have to grow vegetables and cultivate fields by themselves to reduce the cost of transportation to this side by the court. It can be seen how difficult it is to open up the Malay Peninsula.

But difficulties are difficulties, and expenses are expenses. The only thing that Xilichi did not calculate correctly is that the combat effectiveness of Srivijaya and the Song army is not proportional at all.

There is no need to mobilize the navy on a large scale. The firepower of a Guangzhou alone is enough to destroy them.

In short, Xilichi misjudged the combat effectiveness of the Song envoys and thought that he could easily control an envoy.

But the problem is that the King of Loulan and the King of Gaochang also thought so back then. What was the result?

Only the Guangzhou, an ironclad ship, and hundreds of soldiers bombarded with muskets and artillery, and instantly killed thousands of Srivijaya soldiers.

Afterwards, the Song army rushed into Palembang, captured the Srivijaya king Silichi alive, and captured all their confidants.

Pu Jin was originally a powerful businessman in Srivijaya. He naturally had the support of tribes and confidants in his own country. With the help of the Song army, he easily stabilized the situation and became the new king.

Although the metaphor is a bit inappropriate, the fact that the Qing Dynasty in later generations could not stop the British and French forces from Tianjin all the way to Beijing shows how big the gap is.

Under such circumstances, the Song Dynasty envoys took less than two hours to destroy a country, and it was a country with a capital of more than 100,000 people and a national population of more than one million, which was no less than that of Xixia.

Pu Jin, who was originally the translator and guide of the envoys, became the new king in such a confused way. When the envoys return in the second half of the year, he will follow the envoys to the Song Dynasty to participate in the New Year celebrations.

The envoys hid their merits and fame. After crossing the Strait of Malacca, they crossed the Strait of Greate and sailed nearly 2,000 kilometers, crossing the vast ocean and heading towards Sri Lanka.

The Chola Dynasty is a kingdom in southern India, which owns half of Sri Lanka. This is the next destination of the Song Dynasty envoys, and they are expected to arrive in early May.

The vast ocean is boundless. During the voyage of the fleet, except for the occasional Middle Eastern merchant ships, it is difficult to see even an island.

Most of the time, they can only see blue sky and white clouds, and occasional storms.

While the Song Dynasty envoys were sailing alone on the Indian Ocean, at this time, more than 4,000 kilometers away in Kaifeng City, Bianliang Prefecture, Henan Province, the Political System Institute was discussing new things.

In midsummer in May, the temperature in Kaifeng gradually rose, and the temperature outside the house remained around 30 degrees all year round, making people feel stuffy and unbearable, and sweating like rain on their backs.

Factories outside the city stopped working, and schools were closed at noon and in the afternoon. Classes were changed to after 6 o'clock in the morning and evening, and lasted until 10 o'clock.

This is also the disadvantage of rapid industrial development.

In the later Western Industrial Revolution, which lasted for more than a hundred years, various industrial products appeared one after another with the progress of physics and chemistry.

Like air conditioning, it compresses chemical synthesis gas to form cold air, and since then, humans have gradually gotten rid of the scorching heat.

However, the industry of the Song Dynasty was concentrated, with priority given to the textile industry and transportation industry. Chemistry also focused on agriculture. For example, the School of Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences is now working hard to develop fertilizers.

There is almost no research on household appliances such as refrigerators, televisions, washing machines, and even in the field of communication and telephone.

More than ten years of development, the accumulation is far from enough.

However, Zhao Jun knew that this was only temporary. As education became more and more popular, various inventions would come out sooner or later.

The wisdom of the Chinese people is never worse than others.

"Economic and political stability is ultimately the strength of military capabilities. In the past, everyone scolded the Song Dynasty for emphasizing culture over military and castrating itself. I actually know the reason, but I still scold it."

In the Constitutional Court, the temperature in the room was slightly lower than that outside by seven or eight degrees, because ice cubes and basins were placed in every corner of the room, constantly emitting cool air.

Zhao Jun knocked on the table and said, "You can do this at the beginning of the Song Dynasty, but not afterwards. Too much is as bad as too little, and it will only backfire on you."

"Well, what about the list sent by the Ministry of War?"

Fu Bi asked, "Should we send it back and ask them to redo it, or should we issue it directly after giving our approval?"

"Hmm"

Zhao Jun looked at the list in his hand and pondered for a moment and said: "The list is generally reasonable, but since Zhang Kang and Di Qing are major generals, it is obviously abnormal. Let everyone go up two levels in rank."

"Then we will have six generals, more than thirty lieutenant generals, and more than a hundred major generals. Isn't this a bit much?"

Fu Bi was a little worried.

"Not much at all. In the early days of our new era, the ten founding marshals, the ten founding generals, the founding generals were fifty-seven, the founding lieutenant generals were one seventy-seven, and the founding major generals were even more exaggerated, one thousand three hundred and sixty. "

"How many soldiers did you have at that time?"

"Forehead"

Zhao Jun thought for a while and said, "It seems to be more than five million."

Many prime ministers present, including Fan Zhongyan and others, were all speechless.

Good guy, there are more than five million people, but there are not more than a thousand generals?

How many people did the Song Dynasty have?

After so many years of military restructuring, the army only has 600,000 soldiers and the navy has only 35,000 soldiers.

"This was actually the case in ancient times. It was normal for any founding dynasty to have more than a hundred founding heroes."

Zhao Jun knew what they were thinking and said: "Now that the Song Dynasty has so much more land, we can just reopen the country."

"All right."

Fu Bi's face still looked a little ugly and said: "It's just that Wang Deyong is okay. After all, Cao Cong, Li Yonghe, and Li Zhaoliang have achieved real military merit."

"Well."

Zhao Jun also had some difficulties.

At the beginning of this year, he and Fan Zhongyan implemented the New Deal and planned to officially begin to improve the status of military personnel.

At that time, the military and government will be separated, with one system for the military and another for officials.

Among them, military rank is very important, representing the level of a soldier.

Because lieutenants, school officers, and generals have been the divisions of military commanders in ancient my country since ancient times, and this was also the case in later generations, this system was followed.

Like later generations, they were divided into second lieutenants, lieutenants, and captains. Major, lieutenant colonel, colonel. Major general, lieutenant general, general. It corresponds to the ninth rank among officials, but it is not divided into the eighteenth rank.

Many prime ministers in the Constitutional Yuan had no objection to improving the status of generals. Zhao Jun had made it clear to them that the army was the cornerstone of the country. If the Song Dynasty wanted to be stable for a long time, it could not suppress the army too much.

Therefore, it is logical to restructure the military and enhance its status.

The celebration at the beginning of next year will be a major conferment of titles. At that time, Zhao Zhen will personally confer titles and honors on the generals and give them the newly designed Imperial Medal as the highest honor.

As a result, the joint selection department led by the Ministry of War, with the Privy Council and the Sanya as auxiliary, handed over the list of awards. Zhao Jun's blood pressure was a little high when he saw it.

Not a single lieutenant general.

Forget it about Fan Zhongyan. Although he played a decisive role in the Song-Xia War and the Song-Liao War, as prime minister, he naturally could not participate in the selection.

As for Zhang Kang, an important figure who had repeatedly made military exploits in the Song-Xia War and the Song-Liao War, led his troops to win key battles many times, and had been promoted to the Privy Council, he was actually only a major general.

The same goes for Di Qing. As the general who first destroyed the Yue and Li Dynasties, and then later the Xixia, Gaochang, Black Khan and other countries, the current Deputy Privy Envoy is also a major general.

Although Di Qing mainly served as a general under Fan Zhongyan and Zhang Kang in his early years.

But later, as the Xixia and Liao kingdoms were crippled, Fan Zhongyan and Zhang Kang's status was too high. If they destroyed the country, they would have no title, so they gave up their credit.

Among them, a large number of senior generals, including Di Qing, Ge Huaimin, Ren Fu, Liu Ping, Zhao Zhen, Gao Jixuan, Shi Yuansun, Xu Huaide, etc., all made great contributions in these wars.

Moreover, except for Di Qing, who climbed up from the bottom of the army, the others were senior generals of the Song Dynasty. Historically, they were the general manager and deputy general manager of various troops and horses in the Song-Xia war.

Being able to stand out among such a group of senior generals represents Di Qing's ability. Even in terms of military merit, he has surpassed Zhang Kang and is not inferior to Fan Zhongyan.

In the end, he was just a major general and even Zhao Jun was entertained.

But Zhao Jun also knew what was going on with the people in the Ministry of War and the Privy Council.

After Fu Bi was promoted to prime minister, Gao Ruona took over as Minister of War. Except for Di Qing, all members of the Privy Council, including Zhang Kang, the Privy Councilor, were Jinshi.

So this is not necessarily a case of the civil service group resisting the orders of the Constitutional Yuan, but it is very likely that they think this is the way it should be arranged.

Even though they vaguely guessed that the Constitutional Yuan wanted to change the current embarrassing dilemma of military generals' status, they still chose to do so.

It has nothing to do with interests, it is purely their instinct to not want to improve the status of military commanders. This is something engraved in their bones.

"Of course the Constitutional Yuan cannot go around shouting that we want to improve the status of military officers, so we can only use policies and rules to steadily improve it. Making this kind of reform is the best way."

Zhao Jun pondered and said: "By raising their status, I think the officials below will also understand the meaning of the Constitutional Yuan. As for Li Yong and their words."

He thought for a while and said: "Let me report to His Majesty this afternoon. Cao Cong has also had military exploits before. Li Yonghe and Li Zhaoliang are His Majesty's people after all."

"Well, that's all we can do. Let His Majesty make the decision."

Fu Bi responded.

In the past few years, the chief officials of the third government office were Cao Cong, Li Yonghe and Gao Hua. Later, Gao Hua died of illness and were first replaced by Wang Deyong and then Li Zhaoliang.

Later generations believed that the Privy Council of the Song Dynasty was the highest military institution.

But in fact, the Privy Council is just an institution for mobilizing the army, similar to a certain committee in later generations.

The real military chief, or the nominal military chief, is actually the three major commanders of the three yamen, commonly known as the palace commander, the horse commander and the step commander.

Among them, Ma Shuai Cao Cong is the uncle of Zhao Zhen's wife, Bu Shuai Li Yonghe is Zhao Zhen's uncle, and Palace Commander Li Zhaoliang is also a relative.

Therefore, when deciding on the list, it is natural to consider the military chief, even if it is only in name.

Zhao Jun flipped through the list again, identifying these six people first, and then Zhao Zhen would make a decision.

He originally wanted to cross out Wang Deyong. Wang Deyong has now taken a back seat, but he still serves as the envoy of Xuanhui South Academy.

But after thinking about it, I forgot about it.

Wang Deyong participated in both the Song-Xia War and the Song-Liao War. He was the second-in-command second only to Fan Zhongyan. He had also fought in the battles between Li Jiqian and Chanzhou before, and was a veteran on the battlefield for many years.

Not conferring titles to people before they have fully retired is obviously a bit of a waste of time.

Cao Cong had been on the battlefield before and served as the commander-in-chief of the troops and horses at Huanqing Road. Zhao Zhen was his deputy commander-in-chief. Later, he was transferred back to Bianliang as the commander-in-chief.

In terms of military exploits, without the Song-Liao War, it would be difficult to judge a major general.

But who allows people to be related households?

As for Li Yonghe and Li Zhaoliang, they were both people who had never been on the battlefield for a day. One was Zhao Zhen's uncle, and the other was the youngest son of Zhao Guangyi's wife and brother Li Jilong, and they were full relatives of the emperor.

no way.

During the feudal empire, you had to consider these things, and there were always various concerns.

So the current selection of generals has tentatively selected six people: Zhang Kang, Di Qing, Wang Deyong, Cao Cong, Li Yonghe, and Li Zhaoliang.

There are more people on the lieutenant general side.

There are a large number of senior generals such as Ge Huaimin, Ren Fu, Liu Ping, Zhao Zhen, Gao Jixuan, Shi Yuansun, Xu Huaide, Wang Kai, Fan Ke and so on.

The Song-Xia War, the Song-Liao War, and later the War to Destroy the Yue Dynasty and the War to Destroy Xixia, produced a large number of meritorious generals.

Except for a few who died of illness, such as Jingtai, Liu Hu, and Wang Xin, most of the senior generals who participated in these wars were at the level of General Manager Lu and Deputy General Manager.

Basically, as long as these people make no mistakes, they can all be rated as lieutenant generals, and the total number has reached more than 30.

There are even more major generals, more than a hundred of them.

Including Zhang Yu, Zhe Jimin, Zhong Shiheng, Zhou Mei, Wang Zhongbao, Li Shibin, Jia Kui, Wang Gui, Guo Zun, Zhang Qi, Yang Wenguang, etc., most of them were middle and upper-level generals in the original army.

Such as the state deployment, deputy deployment, jurisdiction, custody and so on of various roads under the general manager and deputy general manager.

Unless you have no merit in battle, you can become a major general.

Among them, there are also warriors with big-headed soldiers or low-level officers fighting all the way to major generals.

For example, Zhang Yu was a soldier of Yulongzhi with Di Qing. Di Qing was the squad leader at that time, and he was the top soldier under Di Qing.

Zhe Jimin, Zhou Mei, and Yang Guangwen were all low-level officers, and they became major generals by virtue of their military merit.

After all, there were only a few people like Di Qing who rose from the ranks of soldiers to generals. There was only one Di Qing in the entire Renzong Dynasty. The rest of the lower-level soldiers and officers were already unbelievable if they could reach the rank of major general.

Therefore, the entire rating process basically revolves around seniority, official rank before rating, and military exploits achieved in previous battles.

Judging from the current situation, apart from the fact that the Ministry of War and the Privy Council downgraded those who should have been rated as generals to major generals, lieutenant generals to colonels, and major generals to lieutenant colonel, there are no major problems.

"Then let's do this for now. Anyway, there is still half a year before the title is awarded. We can discuss it further to see who is qualified and who has problems."

Zhao Jun closed the directory and said, "How are the statistics for the first half of this year going?"

"The Statistics Department handed it in today. I have been talking about military ranks before. I haven't looked at it yet. I just took a rough look at it. It's not bad."

Yan Shu pointed to the thick stack of official documents on his desk and said, "The data has grown rapidly, and the results are gratifying."

"Ha ha ha ha."

Zhao Jun laughed: "Let me see."

After saying that, he asked the clerk of the imperial edict department to bring the official document and put it on his desk.