Vol 2 Chapter 2634: Xun Wenruo impeached Li Jing, and Yuwen Chengdu went to Yongliang

Chapter 2634 Xun Wenruo impeached Li Jing, Yuwen Chengdu entered Yongliang

 Chapter 2630: Xun Wenruo impeached Li Jing, Yuwen Chengdu entered Yongliang

“Your Majesty, Xun Yu, the Minister of Household Affairs, impeached Li Jing, the governor of Yongliang, and forcibly attacked Hanzhong for the sake of military merit, regardless of the lives of his soldiers, causing heavy losses to the Yongliang army and spending countless money, food and materials.”

Xun Yu said with a cold face, as if I was very angry written on his face. He was obviously really angry because of the casualties in the Battle of Hanzhong.

The casualties in the Battle of Hanzhong were indeed high. Although Ying Hao was very distressed, he did not mean to blame Li Jing. After all, in his opinion, as long as he could get Hanzhong, the price paid would be worth it.

 But Xun Yu, who was responsible for managing money, almost fainted from anger after seeing the casualties in the Battle of Hanzhong.



Disabled soldiers also have to receive pensions, which means that the court has to give 50,000 yuan to their families as pensions. This is undoubtedly a very huge number, almost equivalent to the annual military salary of an army of 200,000 people.

In addition, the Yangpingguan offensive and defensive battles, and the Xinzheng offensive and defensive battles consumed 60% of the siege materials in the Yongliang Military Region, and re-preparing them was a huge expense.

 In addition, the expenses for the recovery and treatment of wounded soldiers, the repair and maintenance of damaged ordnance, and the supply of food and grass for the 300,000 people in Hanzhong all require money from the Ministry of Household Affairs.

Although today's Qin Dynasty is rich, there are also many places to spend money, and it has just expanded its army by 700,000 people. The money in the treasury is constantly being spread out, and it has not stopped yet, but a big money-devouring household like Hanzhong has arrived.

It’s not that the Ministry of Household Affairs can’t come up with so much money, and Xun Yu doesn’t care about the money, but from an economic point of view, the cost and reward of the Hanzhong War are no longer directly proportional.

Xun Yu didn’t even need to make careful calculations. He could roughly calculate by just estimating that the wealth consumed by the Qin Dynasty in Hanzhong had reached an astonishing six million taels of silver.

Given the population and economy of Hanzhong, even the combined tax revenue in the next ten years will not be able to cover the expenditure, not to mention that there are still a lot of broken problems in Hanzhong that need to continue to be spent money to solve.

Although Hanzhong is important to the Qin Dynasty, it is not indispensable. Even if Hanzhong is not in hand, the Qin Dynasty still has scattered passes to guard the pass. With Longxi as a buffer for Liangzhou, it is not afraid of the invasion of the Shu army during the Western Expedition.

It is precisely because of this that before the war started, the Qin court unanimously decided that Hanzhong would be taken if it could be taken in this battle, and if it could not be taken, forget it.

The Qin court originally had no intention of taking Hanzhong, but Li Jing knew that he couldn't do it, but he still took Hanzhong by force, and paid such a high price, which increased the financial burden of the Qin Dynasty.

In the eyes of Xun Yu, the Minister of Household Affairs, and many civil servants, this naturally meant that Li Jing did not care about the life and death of his soldiers for the sake of merit. They did not care whether Li Jing was forced to capture Hanzhong.

“Your Majesty, in this battle of Hanzhong, although Daqin successfully occupied Hanzhong County, the casualties and investment were too great.

 Therefore, Wei Chen believed that Li Jing not only had no merit, but also had a fault, so he was demoted to prevent other generals from imitating Li Jing's behavior of disregarding the lives of soldiers for merit. Xun Yu said with a serious face.

As soon as this statement came out, many officials from the Ministry of Household Affairs, the Ministry of Personnel, and the Ministry of Works all came forward to impeach Li Jing, saying that his faults outweighed his merits.

This is also the first large-scale impeachment of military generals by civilian officials since the founding of the Qin Dynasty, and it was Li Jing, the second person in the military. People who didn't know the inside story thought that the civilian officials wanted to suppress the military generals.

Ying Hao is naturally not willing to punish Li Jing. After all, conquering the world cannot only be viewed from an economic perspective, but also from a strategic perspective.

 From an economic point of view, the expenditure and return of capturing Hanzhong are indeed not directly proportional.

But from a strategic perspective, Great Qin's Kansai defense line has been completely improved. From now on, as long as Hanzhong is defended, there is no need to worry about the threat of Shu Han.

 No amount of money can buy this.

 “Well, this…”

Ying Hao intended to refuse, but before he could say anything, someone refuted Xun Yu on his behalf, and this person turned out to be Zhang Yi.

“Xun Shangshu’s words are wrong…”

Zhang Yi's eloquence was so sharp that even Xun Yu, who was equally eloquent, was speechless after he finished speaking.

Ying Hao looked at Zhang Yi in surprise. He didn't expect that he would speak for Li Jing. After all, Li Jing was forced to take Hanzhong this time, but Zhang Yi had a share of the credit.

Zhang Yi saw Ying Hao looking at her, and averted her gaze with a guilty conscience. After all, Li Jing would be impeached by the ministers, largely because he had tricked him, so now she could help Li Jing make up for it by giving him a good word.

Li Jing was not without connections among civil servants. After Zhang Yi took the lead, Liu Bowen and Zhang Liang also stood up to speak favorably for Li Jing.

"uh-huh."

Seeing that the atmosphere was almost over, Ying Hao pretended to cough and said, "What Xun Aiqing and Zhang Aiqing said are both reasonable. In my opinion, it is better to balance the merits and demerits. I will only reward Li Jing with a thousand taels of gold and a thousand households in the city as a token of encouragement." "

"Your Majesty is wise." Xun Yu and other ministers who impeached Li Jing said in unison.

"Your Majesty, although Hanzhong has been acquired by the Qin Dynasty, it is only a mess. Therefore, the candidate for the prefect of Hanzhong needs to be decided as soon as possible." Prime Minister Wang Meng added.

Ying Hao also nodded in agreement. After all, Hanzhong is indeed a mess now.

After the Xinzheng grain depot was burned by the Qin army, the Shu army forcibly confiscated the grain from the people to provide military use. However, Shenshi set fire to the grain depot again before withdrawing from Nanzheng.

 This also means that the grain produced in Hanzhong is no longer enough for the hundreds of thousands of Hanzhong people, and Da Qin needs to provide food for disaster relief before the autumn harvest. Otherwise, hundreds of thousands of Hanzhong people will become hungry and then revolt.

The Qin Dynasty has been recuperating for three years. The most indispensable thing now is food. Not to mention the hundreds of thousands of Hanzhong people, even if they come back ten times more, they can still afford it, so the food problem is not a difficult problem.

For Da Qin, the real problem in digesting Hanzhong was that more than one-third of Hanzhong's young and strong people were forcibly recruited by the Shu army and died in the battle with the Qin army.

So many young people in Hanzhong died in the battle with the Qin army, which also made the people in Hanzhong complain about the Qin army. Therefore, Da Qin is not popular among the people in Hanzhong. In addition, although the Shu army had retreated, the spies left behind and lurking behind were still inciting hatred among the people in Hanzhong against Qin, and wanted to encourage the people in Hanzhong to revolt against Qin.

Problems such as food and grass, public grievances, counterintelligence, etc. all need to be solved in the short term by the future Hanzhong governor, and there is also the threat of the Shu Han in the south.

Therefore, the post of Hanzhong Prefect is quite challenging and should not be filled by people who are not politically strong and have outstanding military ability.

After Ying Hao thought about it in his mind, he quickly found a suitable candidate. It was the first imperial examination champion of the Qin Dynasty and the current prefect of Fufeng, Ban Chao.

Ban Chao has breakthrough political and military abilities, and he played a great role in the battle to destroy the Tang Dynasty. He is the best choice for the governor of Hanzhong. The only disadvantage is that his qualifications are still relatively young.

However, when Ying Hao hires people, he always values ​​talent and merit, and naturally he will not discard them just because of their qualifications.

“Publish my decree and transfer Fufeng Prefect Ban Chao to take up the post of Hanzhong Prefect.”

Hearing what Ying Hao said, the ministers below started talking one after another. They all felt that His Majesty favored Ban Chao.

It has been less than a year since Ban Chao was promoted from a county minister to a prefect, and now he has to be promoted to the prefect of Hanzhong. Although it is a horizontal transfer, the position of the prefect of Hanzhong County on the front line obviously has much greater power than the governor of Fufeng County at the rear. .

Although Ban Chao was the first number one scholar in the Qin Dynasty, he was only a rookie in politics who had been in office for less than three years. However, he had already been promoted to the level of prefect and was about to take office as the prefect of the second county. This promotion speed was indeed a bit too fast.

Ying Hao said, "Tell Ban Chao that I trusted him and handed Hanzhong over to him. But if he can't give me a stable Hanzhong before Da Qin goes to war with all the princes, then he can take the initiative to submit his resignation." "

As soon as this statement came out, many people began to rejoice in the misfortune. After all, the problem in Hanzhong was not easy to solve, and an all-out war with the princes was not far away.

The time is short, the tasks are heavy, and there are many troubles. The position of Hanzhong prefect is simply a hot potato.

“In the Battle of Hanzhong, our Qin Dynasty lost nearly 50,000 troops. These 50,000 troops must be replaced as soon as possible.”

Ying Hao's plan is to increase the total military strength of Qin to 1.55 million through military expansion, and then directly push the four kingdoms of Wei, Song, Ming, and Sui with an absolute advantage in military strength.

Now that the army expansion plan has been completed, the new armies have been dispersed across the country for secret training. However, the Battle of Hanzhong caused the Qin Dynasty to lose 50,000 troops.

Although the presence or absence of these 50,000 troops will not affect Qin's next plan, it is still good to make up for it just in case.

“The large-scale conscription has ended. If conscription is carried out on a large scale, it will stimulate the major princes.

In order to prevent the enemy from being alerted, this expansion of the army will only recruit prisoners of the Shu army. If the number is not enough, they will be recruited locally in Hanzhong to supplement the troops. "

Although the people in Hanzhong resented the Qin army, relatively speaking, they still hated the Shu Han more. After all, if there were no atrocities committed by the Shu Han, so many young people in Hanzhong would not have died.

If this hatred is channeled well, it will not only resolve the resentment of the Hanzhong people against the Qin Dynasty, but also improve the combat effectiveness of the Hanzhong soldiers. After all, fighting against Shu in this way is not an invasion, but a matter of revenge.

 “As for sending more generals to join the Yongliang army...”

Through Li Jing's message, Ying Hao also already knew the news that Li Yuanba appeared and his left arm was connected, so he paid great attention to Li Jing's request to send more powerful generals to Yongliang.

Li Jing knew that he could not win over Li Cunxiao, so he wanted any two of Jiang Song, Yuwen Chengdu, Lu Bu, and Gao Chong to join the Yongliang army, but Ying Hao could not agree to this request.

Yongliang Army's number of fierce generals is quite saturated. Yang Jian, Xuanyuan, Long Qie, Long Yang and many other war gods are all in the Yongliang Military Region. If they don't transfer the fierce generals out to join other military regions, it will be quite good.

Li Jing wants two super generals, which is obviously impossible. If he really does this, other military regions will definitely have objections.

Ying Hao thought for a while and decided to ask the four generals for their opinions. Unexpectedly, Yuwen Chengdu took the initiative to apply to join the Yongliang Military Region after learning the news about Li Yuanba.

Ying Hao knew that Yuwen Chengdu was going to Li Yuanba. He regarded Li Yuanba as his old enemy, but he only defeated the one-armed Li Yuanba once in the battle to destroy the Tang Dynasty. All other battles were defeated miserably, so much so that Li Yuanba almost died. It became his inner demon.

Today's Yuwen Chengdu has also been reborn, and his strength is far greater than before. But if he wants to continue to progress, he must get rid of his inner demons.

Ying Hao had no reason to prevent Yuwen Chengdu from getting rid of his inner demons, not to mention the fateful fight between him and Li Yuanba, so he agreed to Yuwen Chengdu's request to join the Yongliang Army.

 On the other side, Li Jing secretly breathed a sigh of relief after receiving the order from the court.

 He was actually prepared to be reprimanded or even lowered. After all, the losses in this battle were indeed too great.

The last time the Qin army suffered so many casualties was the second Guanzhong War with Li Tang.

But in this battle, the Qin army not only captured three counties of Guanzhong, Longxi, and two Shangyong counties, but also captured one and a half counties of Liangzhou.

Now he only has one county and ten counties in Hanzhong, but he has paid such a high price. The payment and reward are indeed somewhat disproportionate. It is impossible for the civil servants in the court not to impeach him.

But instead of blaming him, His Majesty rewarded him with a thousand pieces of gold and an additional city. Naturally, Li Jing was extremely moved.

However, when he learned that when the officials impeached him, the first person who spoke for him was Zhang Yi, Li Jing was also very surprised, and his resentment towards Zhang Yi also subsided a lot.

 (End of this chapter)