On the battlefield throughout the country, Shen Yicheng's imperial court's army had completely fallen into a disadvantageous position. They could only passively take a beating and did not have the strength to counterattack. In the face of Xiao Ruxun's three-pronged army, they appeared particularly weak and powerless.
The west was being swept away, the south was being swept away, and the east was being stabbed. They were being attacked from three sides and were on the verge of collapse.
Jiang Dahai led his army in the direction of Wuqing and Tongzhou, using the Tianjin Garrison as a base. They encountered quite a few defensive lines set up by Shen Yicheng. They defended with all their might and did not retreat a single step. They even brought over a large number of cannons to exchange fire with the Zhennan Army. Although the quality of their cannons was not very good and they would explode, they had a lot of them.
Once their numbers increased, Jiang Dahai could not bear to let his subordinates charge. In any case, it was fine as long as they maintained the offensive. This was Xiao Ruxun's goal. He wanted them to be too tired to attack until Xiao Ruxun arrived.
This was something that Jiang Dahai could do.
With the help of a few Red Barbarian Cannons, this was even easier. Cannons that could fire from such a long distance were undoubtedly a nightmare for the soldiers defending the city.
Under such a powerful attack, in addition to Shen Yicheng's order to defend, Da Yun was not willing to let his soldiers go out of the city to die.
Moreover, the situation had developed to this point, and Da Yun was also feeling apprehensive.
Did he come all the way here just to die?
Da Yun was very conflicted.
Hearing the deafening cannons, everyone knew that a change in the sky was only a matter of time.
The logic of victors being kings and losers being vilified could not be more obvious.
When Shen Yicheng was in power, the world obeyed Taichang Emperor and the era name of Taichang, throwing away the era name of Wanli. But now, Shen Yicheng was already a skeleton in the grave. Everywhere had reprinted the era name of Wanli. Official documents and private letters were all changed to the 26th year of Wanli. The two words' Taichang 'seemed to have become a political red line.
As Xiao Ruxun led his army to attack Liaocheng, he received letters and official documents from some of the officials accompanying him. They did not send the memorials to the imperial court. Instead, they sent them to Xiao Ruxun for Xiao Ruxun to decide, such as repairing the river, local conditions, disaster relief, and so on.
Xiao Ruxun didn't refuse their obvious flattery. Instead, he accepted their flattery with satisfaction.
With the experienced Ye Mengxiong and Yuan Huang as the leaders, he personally selected more than ten practical officials with achievements in the local areas. Together with a hundred young people from all over Jiangnan and Jiangbei that he had carefully selected, they formed a government management team.
Yuan Huang and Ye Mengxiong were the leaders. The more established and realistic officials were the assistants, and the hundred youths were the trainees.
Naturally, these hundred youths were the most outstanding batch of people that he had found while training ideological instructors and land reform officials.
He couldn't bear to let this batch of people go out to be ideological instructors and land reform officials. Instead, he kept them by his side to deal with military affairs, giving them a chance to train. Now that there was a bigger stage, Xiao Ruxun arranged for them to work under Ye Mengxiong and Yuan Huang to learn how to deal with government affairs.
It wasn't necessary to be a Jinshi to deal with government affairs. These scholars, even those who didn't have a Jinshi title, had sufficient cultural foundations and could learn how to govern the country.
The scholars who were selected from the imperial examinations walked the same path as them. They also had to observe politics before they could be appointed to the local government or the central government. No one was born to deal with government affairs. They had to learn and apply it bit by bit.
Following behind experienced officials like Ye Mengxiong and Yuan Huang, they could learn a lot. Even if they weren't qualified to become central government officials, in Xiao Ruxun's eyes, they were qualified to be county magistrates or township or village officials. Once they were promoted step by step, they would have a promising future.
When the world was at peace, for the sake of imperial power, he wanted to officially restore the township administrative regions. He wanted to restore the township administrative regions, which had gradually become autonomous since the Tang and Song dynasties, to the administrative regions of the country.
As for the villages below the township level, they also had to set up specialized village officials as the most basic of bureaucrats. They had to listen to the government's orders. In short, he wanted the central government to extend its tentacles to every household in the empire and have complete control over the place.
He wanted people to start from the lowest level of bureaucrats. He wanted to make the history of becoming a county magistrate the moment he graduated. He wanted to carry out a major reform of the imperial examination system. He wanted to set up specialized schools to replace private schools and academies. The central government would appoint officials to manage and control the education in their hands.
Next, Xiao Ruxun wanted to change the title of teacher, making it a professional title.
He wanted to make teachers purely teachers, specializing in education and not in administrative positions. They wouldn't become administrative officials either. Administrative officials would be administrative officials, while teachers would be educational officials. The separation of the two would prevent teachers from becoming administrative officials. He wanted to cut off the traditional social identities of teachers.
The examinations would also be handled by specialized administrative officials, instead of the central government choosing officials to be the chief examiner. He wanted to cultivate his political power so that he could stand firm in the future. This system of using the status of teacher and student to strengthen the power of the officials had to be abolished.
This was to tear up the natural nepotistic network of teacher and student relationships that had formed in the officialdom since ancient times. It would prevent teachers and students from forming natural official alliances when they were both officials in the same court. It would further prevent the birth of cliques, making it more difficult for officials to work together and have fewer relationships other than colleagues.
Xiao Ruxun didn't want to see the typical political alliance between teacher and student like Xu Jie or Zhang Juzheng.
Daming the power of the civil officials in the court was too strong. China's traditional sense of respect for teachers was also too strong. In this era, teachers and students were very likely to become officials, or even certain to become officials. Doing this was also a method to weaken the power of the civil officials.
At the same time, the establishment of military academies was also imperative. In order to maintain the power of the military and prevent the situation of valuing the civil over the military from happening again, the establishment of military academies was very necessary. Just like the scholars, the military academies would be used to educate and manage the soldiers, carrying out a revolutionary change aimed at the soldiers. It would replace the system of hereditary bloodline and change the situation of the civil officials dominating the military due to the rapid decline of the military merit system.
Through this system, the power to select officials and military officers would be in the hands of the central government or even the emperor. This would strengthen the emperor's control over the officials under him. This would allow the emperor to hold the opportunity to bestow favors, thus achieving the effect of the strong trunk and the weak branch.
In this way, at least at the central government level, the imperial power would be strengthened. Once an orderly bureaucratic system was formed, it would be very simple to quickly operate it.
The reason why the Ming Dynasty lost to Li Zicheng and the Manchurian Qing was not because the so-called imperial power was greatly strengthened. On the contrary, it was because the imperial power was not strong enough. The fall of every dynasty was also due to the decline of the imperial power.
The Daming Dynasty had an extremely strong and even had the potential to flatten all enemies in all directions. How to turn this potential into real national power that could be used was what Xiao Ruxun wanted to do. To be honest, if the Daming Dynasty had the same control and mobilization power as the Qin Dynasty, they could even flatten fifty Nurhacis.
To put it bluntly, there were too many local constraints. They had a strong potential, but could not turn it into national power. The strength was scattered and could not be gathered in one place. In the end, it would be taken advantage of by outsiders.
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
