Vol 2 Chapter 2304: The Constitution of the Qin Empire, Disarmament and the Imperial Examination Sy

Chapter 2304 The Constitution of the Qin Empire, Disarmament and the Imperial Examination System

Chapter 2300: The Constitution of the Qin Empire, Disarmament and the Imperial Examination System

 “Your Majesty goes to the palace, and all the officials kneel to greet you.”

Cao Zhengchun, the general manager of the palace, loudly announced the arrival of the emperor in the eunuch's unique high-pitched voice. Then all the ministers knelt down and saluted in tacit agreement: "See my emperor, your majesty will live forever."

Ying Hao, who was sitting on the dragon chair, stretched out his hand and said indifferently: "Everyone, please be level."

 “Thank you, Your Majesty.”

Ying Hao was a little unhappy with the kneeling ceremony and felt it was incompatible with the general style and dignity, so he proposed to abolish it. However, he was opposed by five of the six ministers, led by Prime Minister Wang Meng, especially the Minister of Rites and Xi Zhicai. .

Xi Zhicai's opinion against the abolition of kneeling down is very strange. He is not a pedantic stickler for old etiquette, but to safeguard imperial power.

 When the Qin Dynasty was first established, it was the time to show the majesty of the imperial authority, and the kneeling ceremony was also a way to show the majesty of the imperial authority. The newly born Da Qin was not suitable for abolition.

Moreover, even if the kneeling ceremony is to be abolished, it should be done step by step rather than directly abolished by law.

Xi Zhicai persuaded Ying Hao, and his words also made Ying Hao further understand the true meaning of governing a big country like cooking small dishes, so he gave up the idea of ​​directly abolishing the kneeling ceremony.

Although Ying Hao did not directly abolish the ritual of kneeling, he did not explicitly write in the "Etiquette" code in the "Constitution of the Great Qin", the first code of the Qin Empire, that generals, common people and ministers must kneel before the emperor.

 Whether to kneel or not is entirely up to the people's free will.

As for the "Constitution of the Qin Dynasty", it was also the first code of the Qin Empire revised by Ying Hao after he proclaimed himself emperor, based on the "Qin Law" and the "Han Law" and combined with his own New Deal reforms.

Naturally, Ying Hao attached great importance to this set of codes, so he personally supervised the process of specifying the laws. He also worked with Wang Meng, Han Fei, Wei Yang, and Wu Qi (who had successfully defected to Da Qin, and because of his status as a disciple of Legalism, he was Ying Hao was specially approved to participate in the study of the law, and other ministers of the law practice had disputes.

Ying Hao, as a memory traveler with future generations, can naturally put forward many novel and advanced opinions, which makes the founders of Legalism such as Han Fei and Shang Yang shine.

 Most of Ying Hao's views were still opposed by Han Fei and others. He said that they were "too advanced".

Ying Hao's thoughts were naturally good. He wanted the country to be stronger, the laws to be more perfect, and the people to be happier. However, he made the same policy mistake as Wang Mang's new policy, that is, he wanted to take off before it was stable. But this era, which is very backward in ideology, culture and economy, obviously cannot bear or bear Ying Hao's forward thinking. Forcing the law will only lead to the same fate as Wang Mang.

 A person who is one step ahead of his time is a genius, and a person who is ten steps ahead of his time is a madman.

Ying Hao was naturally aware of this, so he gave up many unrealistic ideas and only adopted the essence suitable for this era, which was repaired by Legalists such as Wang Meng, Han Fei, and Shang Yang.

When Wang Mang implemented the new coup law, if he had been assisted by Han Fei, Shang Yang and others, his defeat would not have been so complete.

 The "Constitution of the Qin Dynasty" under the leadership of Ying Hao basically covers all aspects of society. It is all-encompassing and extremely vast, but it also involves too many things, so naturally it cannot be revised in a short time.

Ying Hao initially estimated that even the first version of the Constitution of the Qin Dynasty would take at least a year to be completely revised. After that, it would need to be continuously improved based on the actual situation of the country.

But it doesn’t matter, as much as you change it, you will implement it.

Newspapers have been fully promoted in the Qin Dynasty. The Qin court has completely taken the lead in public opinion, and the revision process of the Constitution can be updated in real time in the newspapers.

The process of amending the law is difficult and slow, but Ying Hao believes that once this constitution is released, it will be the most advanced set of laws in the world, and it will not be outdated even if it takes a thousand years for future generations. This is why Ying Hao left it. The greatest treasure for future generations.

"Your Majesty, Princess Su Xinyue of Wei Kingdom has arrived in Luoyang, and Princess Zhao Ling'er of Song Kingdom will also arrive within a week. The envoys of both countries hope to get married as soon as possible." Zhang Yi Station reported.

 Concerning the matter of marriage, the most urgent one is the State of Wei.

Although Qin State did not openly oppose Cao Cao's claim to the throne, five great masters of Qin State quietly entered Shouchun, which also showed what the true attitude of Qin State was.

Therefore, Wei naturally did not dare to cross the red line left and right, but honestly lowered its posture and continued to be Qin's number one brother.

Ying Hao thought for a while and then said: "There is no rush to get married for now. We will send officials from the Ministry of Etiquette to the embassy to teach the princesses of the two countries royal etiquette. After the princesses learn the royal etiquette, we can complete the wedding."

Regarding royal etiquette, the princesses of the Wei and Song dynasties must have learned it before coming to Da Qin. However, the other state religions are one thing, and the advantages of Da Qin's own state religion are another matter. Etiquette cannot be abolished, so this process It is necessary to go.

 At present, Zhen Mi and Xiao Meiniang are also learning the etiquette of reproduction and making final preparations for entering the palace as concubines.

After Zhang Yi retreated, Prime Minister Wang Meng stood up again and said: "Your Majesty, in the next few years, the national policy of Da Qin will be to recuperate and restore national strength. Therefore, I propose to hold a military competition to disarm.

 Only retaining the size of the 800,000-strong army will free up more funds to develop and restore national strength. "

The land area of ​​Da Qin involves eight states. The territory is too large, the population is too large, and there are too many enemies. Therefore, even an army of 800,000 people is only enough, and it is far from achieving the goal of unifying the world.

Prime Minister Wang Meng of the civilian group proposed disarmament, which would naturally affect the interests of the military generals group. But what is rare is that no one in the generals group stood up for it, because disarmament was basically a consensus.

Since the Battle of Hebei, the Qin army has been filled with a large number of surrendered troops.

Although these surrendered troops have been reorganized, there are still many of them, and they do not meet the Qin soldier training regulations. Their combat effectiveness is naturally much worse than that of the regular army, which naturally lowers the overall combat effectiveness of the Qin army.

 Because the war was not over yet, and because Da Qin's troops were stretched thin, they lowered their standards and accepted the surrender, and also temporarily recruited 100,000 new soldiers.

 In the subsequent Battle of Jingbei and the Battle of Guanzhong, the casualty rate of surrendered troops and new soldiers was also the highest. Eight out of ten Qin troops who died in the battle were surrendered troops and new recruits.

The surrendered troops in Da Qin's establishment enjoy the same pensions as the regular army, but the casualty rate is much higher than that of the regular army. Da Qin's pension system is the greatest guarantee for the army to fight without worries and to ensure the strong combat power of the army. It cannot be abolished no matter what.

However, once the number of casualties of soldiers is too high, the huge amount of pensions will crush the finances of Da Qin, making Da Qin breathless.

The largest battle of Hebei, the Qin army suffered casualties of 100,000, the most troublesome battle of Youzhou suffered 120,000 casualties, the most tragic battle of Jingbei suffered 144,000 casualties, and the smoothest battle of Yongliang also suffered 95,000 casualties. .

Not counting other small-scale wars, after these four battles alone, the total number of casualties of the Qin army was 450,000. Although it brought huge benefits to Qin, the casualties were also higher than the total number of Qin's troops before the war. More than half of that.

 Among them, surrendered troops and new soldiers accounted for 70%, about 320,000, while regular troops accounted for 30%, about 135,000.

Ying Hao was shocked when he saw this report, and it can be seen from this data that Da Qin's strategy of elite troops is correct and must continue to be implemented.

 Because only when the overall quality of soldiers is improved, the survival rate on the battlefield will be improved. When the survival rate is increased, the casualty rate will be lower, and naturally there will be no need to bear a huge pension.

　　That is to say, the Qin Dynasty has a strong national power, plus it is wise and good at making money. It has wiped out various countries and wiped out the aristocratic families in Youzhou, Hebei Province, and also captured a large amount of wealth. Only then can it barely afford this pension.

But even so, Great Qin's financial pressure is still very high, especially military expenditures, which account for the largest proportion of national expenditures. This is extremely detrimental to Great Qin's post-war recovery. It has reached a time when it must dismantle its military to get through this financial crisis. .

After listening to Wang Meng's words, Ying Hao nodded in agreement. Nowadays, disarmament does have a lot of benefits for Da Qin. Of course, the navy is not included in the scope of disarmament.

With Da Qin’s dominant position, no country dared to take the initiative to provoke it.

Even if all countries jointly invade, an army of 800,000 is enough for defense. There is no need to maintain the current huge military strength of more than 1.1 million. It is just a waste of military expenses, not to mention that the combat power is not high.

  Implementing disarmament and eliminating all redundant and unqualified soldiers, the overall quality of the entire army will also be improved, and the overall combat strength will be no worse than that of a million-strong army.

Ying Hao will not give up the laid-off troops directly. Instead, he will turn them into county garrison troops or arresters, so that they can continue to shine.

In this case, military expenditures will be reduced several times, and in the event of a war, soldiers can be urgently recruited, which can be said to kill two birds with one stone.

When the Qin Dynasty has completely digested the results of the war and overcome the financial crisis, and can afford the military expenses of its million-strong army, it will not be too late to expand its army.

 After all, given Da Qin’s population base, the number of reserves, and the people’s enthusiasm for joining the army, it is not difficult to expand the army.

“What Prime Minister Wang said is true, I am correct. Where is Bai Qi?”

Bai Qi quickly stood up.

 “I am here.”

"Bai Qi, you are the general. You will be fully responsible for the whole army competition and disarmament."

Hearing this, Bai Qi was startled at first, and then he was overjoyed. His pale face turned red, and he clasped his fists and said solemnly: "I obey the order."

Disarmament will undermine the real power of the generals on all sides, which is not a good thing, but it is a bad thing for Bai Qi.

Ever since being reminded by Jia Xu, Bai Qi has been extremely sensitive to the four words "higher achievements than the master". Although Ying Hao is not too worried about this, Bai Qi himself is scared to death, for fear that one day His Majesty will no longer use him to lead the army. , or simply leave him idle, so he always thinks of using various methods to eliminate his prestige, and deliberately massacres the Liaodong family.

Although Bai Qi's various actions have brought him all kinds of infamy and his prestige in the army has been reduced, it is still very high. If Ying Hao doesn't help him find a way, he may not have the opportunity to continue to lead the army in the future. .

 So in order to continue to use Bai Qi, Ying Hao deliberately put Bai Qi in charge of this matter. This will definitely increase the conflict between Bai Qi and the major governors, thereby taking the opportunity to eliminate Bai Qi's prestige in the army.

Since becoming the emperor, Ying Hao's imperial skills have also grown day by day, and he has become proficient in this method of checking and balancing his ministers.

It is said that the emperor is a lonely man. This is not an empty statement. Ying Hao only felt more deeply about this sentence after he became the emperor.

If the civil servants and military generals were all of one mind, the emperor would not be able to sleep, so how to grasp a good scale, balance the power and relationship between civil and military ministers, and try to prevent the ministers from uniting and partying for selfish interests, so as to prevent threats to the imperial power. A powerful minister, this is the most basic requirement for being a good emperor.

 As for the specific aspects of disarmament, it certainly cannot be discussed in the morning meeting because there are too many things involved.

Bai Qi also needs to return to the General's Mansion to hold a meeting, and first make a rough draft and submit it to Ying Hao. Only after getting permission can he proceed.

After finalizing the disarmament issue, Ying Hao dealt with some complicated and important matters. Then the most important event of this morning was brought up by Xi Zhi, the Minister of Rites.

"Weichen Xinzhicai has its origins. Our system of selecting talents in Da Qin still continues the examination and examination system of the former Han Dynasty. Weichen believes that this system is no longer current and should be abolished and a more complete and advanced system should be used to select talents. "

The Education Department, one of the six departments of the Ministry of Rites, is responsible for all the schools in the Qin Dynasty. As for whether the talent selection system should be abolished, it is naturally most suitable for Xi Zhicai, the Minister of Rites, to propose it.

As soon as Xi Zhicai said this, officials from poor families, such as Wang Meng, Guo Jia, Bao Zheng, Di Renjie and others, all showed joy.

On the contrary, officials from aristocratic families, such as Xun Yu, Liu Ye, Qu Yuan, Wang Xizhi and others, could not help but change their expressions. They had already guessed what Xi Zhicai wanted to say.

Xi Zhicai wanted to abolish the imperial examination system and use the imperial examination system to select officials!

Liu Ye, the minister of the Ministry of Industry, stood up without saying a word and subconsciously retorted: "The remarks of the drama minister are wrong. The inspection and examination system was started by Emperor Wen of the former Han Dynasty and was perfected by Emperor Wu of the former Han Dynasty. It has been implemented for more than 370 years. , and the Han Dynasty was only four hundred years old. The imperial examination system selected a large number of talents for the former Han Dynasty. It made great contributions and was constantly being improved. How could it not be timely? "

Xi Zhicai obviously didn't expect Liu Ye to refute him. After all, he and Liu Ye had a good personal relationship, and he didn't expect Liu Ye's rebuttal to be so sharp. He thought for a while before preparing his answer.

But before Xi Zhicai could say anything, Guo Jia took the lead and retorted: "I don't deny the merits of the Chaju system, but don't forget, even if the Chaju system has been perfected for more than 370 years, The court of the former Han Dynasty was still filled with a large number of incompetent officials, and corruption was rampant. The people were miserable and had no means of livelihood, so they had no choice but to rebel..."

 (End of this chapter)