After the meeting, Xiao Ruxun brought Xiao Zhenbang back to the study. The officials left in twos and threes to continue with the heavy work that could not be finished.
For the officials, this was indeed a very heavy work that they did not even want to think about. They did not know when they would be able to relax a little. They felt that they would not be able to relax for the rest of their lives.
In other dynasties, political struggles were more intense than the previous one, but in this dynasty, other than the Emperor's rectification movement, there were not many officials who had the leisure to engage in political struggles. Unless they were tired of living or had received the Emperor's permission, there were not many officials who dared to engage in political struggles.
Moreover, did they have time?
The Great Steppe to the north, the Western Regions, Ü-Tsang, Liaodong, Japan, Burma, and so on. If not for the fact that the Great Road had been repaired and the sea was unimpeded, it was hard to imagine how many officials would have given up on their jobs.
In other dynasties, officials came to enjoy honor and glory, but in Daqin, it was different. Daqin officials really had to do things, and Daqin did not need officials who did not do things. Moreover, if you did not do things, you would not be able to survive.
The strength of the Daqin Emperor was unprecedented, and the territory of Daqin was unprecedented. Daqin was also the only dynasty in the past thousands of years that had swept away the troubles of the northern border and completely eliminated the disaster of the Northern Barbarians moving south. Just this alone was enough for the Daqin Emperor, Xiao Ruxun, to receive a proper posthumous title of 'Wu'.
Every time the officials mentioned the soul-stirring campaign to sweep the north, they would always reveal an extremely emotional expression.
Since the Pre-Qin Dynasty, Huaxia had never had an emperor personally lead troops to sweep away the northern barbarians. He had even personally led troops to the Northern Sea in the extreme north that only Su Wu had been to. He had even set up a monument there and announced that the Northern Sea would be under the rule of Daqin.
While commemorating Su Wu, this emperor did not forget to show off his unprecedented martial arts. He traveled to the distant Han and Tang and left behind this' Qin Emperor's Horse Monument 'with great pride.
Compared to Feng Lang Juxu and Lei Shi Yanran, these two were just as soul-stirring, but not as resounding as when the Daqin Emperor personally led his army on a northern expedition.
The Daqin Emperor personally led his army to pursue the remnants of Kalga to such a faraway place, and forcibly chopped off Kalga Khan's head in the North Sea with his own hands as proof of his legacy.
He proved that he had wiped out the Northern Barbarians for the first time since Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty. He had completely conquered the Northern Prairie and brought it under the rule of Huaxia, becoming the eternal pasture of Huaxia's children, providing meat, milk, and sweaters for the Central Plains. He had ended the thousands of years of grievances between the Central Plains and the Prairie.
For this, Daqin spent three years and all the warehouse stocks accumulated in the entire Guanzhong, Gansu, and Liaodong regions since the second year of Longwu.
They had paid a total of 6,810,000 taels of military expenditure, as well as the lives of five hundred thousand Wokou and forty thousand Han civilians.
In addition, fifty-seven thousand six hundred and seventy-three Daqin soldiers had left this world forever. Tens of thousands of families had lost their loved ones. Another fifteen thousand three hundred and seventy-one people were crippled for life and had no choice but to leave the army with tears in their eyes.
Nineteen officers above the regimental level had died, one hundred and eighty-seven officers below the regimental level had died, and five hundred and thirty-nine military academy graduates had died.
The corps with the greatest casualties had only twelve thousand one hundred and thirty-one people out of the thirty thousand had returned to their original encampment. Many of the basic squads and platoons only had one or two people left alive. When they saw each other, they hugged each other and cried bitterly.
A large number of horses and mules had died, and the losses amounted to more than sixty thousand.
The heavy casualties caused Emperor Xiao Ruxun to issue a second edict to the people of the world after the war. To comfort the souls of the martyrs, a national Loyal Soul Shrine was set up in the north of the capital, and the memorial tablets for the souls of the martyrs who had died in battle had been placed there.
The 27th day of the ninth month, the day when the Emperor personally beheaded Khalka Khan, would be the Day of Remembrance for the Martyrs. Every year, a grand memorial ceremony would be held so that the martyrs who had died in battle would forever be remembered by the world.
The families of the soldiers who had died in battle, regardless of their military merits, would enjoy a preferential policy of three years of tax exemption and five and a half years of tax exemption, for a total of eight years. The soldiers would receive a corresponding period of tax exemption and tax-free land based on their military merits. In addition, the Imperial Court would also distribute various benefits and rewards to the families of the soldiers.
All in all, for the sake of this war, the national treasury had spent nine million one hundred and fifty thousand taels of silver.
In the tenth year of Longwu, Khalka Khan had been beheaded. After the war on the northern steppe had ended, the national treasury had taken out thirty percent of its reserves. This was practically the entire budget that could be used for war operations.
The Minister of Finance looked at the massive decrease in the national treasury and felt an immense sense of loss.
Healing the wounds of war was not an easy task, but Xiao Ruxun, who had invested a third of the resources that the country had accumulated over several years into this war, felt that this war had been extremely worth it.
The losses were truly enormous, so enormous that even the deep pockets of the Daqin had almost been unable to support it.
They had also exhausted Wang Xijue to the point of exhaustion. In the eleventh year of Longwu, he had directly died of illness at his post.
Li Tingji had fallen ill from exhaustion. In the fourteenth year of Longwu, he had returned to his hometown and died of illness a month after returning home.
Ye Xianggao had trembled with fear and said that he was not good enough to be the Prime Minister. So in the fifteenth year of Longwu, Xu Guangqi had caught up and become the Prime Minister of the Empire. He had been in charge of the logistics of the subsequent wars, but he had also almost died of exhaustion on the spot. Xiao Ruxun was ordered to go home and rest for a month. He had taken a large amount of precious medicinal herbs to recover.
From this point of view, Ye Xianggao had some self-awareness. He knew that he would die of exhaustion as the Prime Minister.
But later, the Daqin Cabinet had increased the number of cabinet ministers to eight. The pressure on Xu Guangqi's work had been greatly reduced. With the assistance of Ye Xianggao and Chen Longzheng, he had not followed in the footsteps of Wang Xijue and Li Tingji.
Even so, the job was still very stressful. Half of Xu Guangqi's black hair had turned white. He dared not to wear a hat when meeting people, for fear that his sparse head would be exposed and make a joke of himself.
Not only the Cabinet, but the great campaign against the Khalkha from the seventh year of Longwu to the tenth year of Longwu not only exhausted the Inner Cabinet, but also more than a dozen officials under them who had collapsed in their posts from exhaustion. More than fifty people were so tired that they wanted to resign and rest at home, not daring to continue risking their lives.
Many local officials at the basic level, such as the chairman of the village farmers' association and the village head, died in the line of duty for the logistics of the war. The total number was about two hundred.
What did the Daqin get for paying such a high price?
After the four Wala Mongols were wiped out in the fourteenth year of Longwu, the Qin Army made a count.
After seven years of war, the Qin Army got 80,129 heads, directly and indirectly wiped out more than 1,300,000 Northern Barbarians, 1,170,000 men and women who were willing to work as coolies until they died, more than 6,000,000 cattle, sheep, horses, and all kinds of bone and leather products, as well as other war materials that could not be piled up to the sky.
And the whole vast grassland that could be used for grazing, and the northern border people who would never be harmed again in the future.
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