After Transmigration: Building a Kingdom in Turbulent Times

Chapter 1192 - 1174: The Battle Begins

She knew it was impossible to completely stop powerful nobles and officials from looking down on scientists; people in this world are all over the place, and you just have to allow for a few brain-dead ones to exist.

But she could change the general mood, so that their contempt would no longer fit the social norm.

So, the Academy of Sciences must be established. Mm, let’s start cultivating the new atmosphere from the newspapers.

Not only must we cherish all kinds of "-ists" like agronomists and hydraulic engineers and mathematicians, who are as fragile as seedlings, we must also cherish the Zhao Family Army, who have always protected them from war, and are now still working everywhere to eliminate bandits and build all kinds of projects and river embankments.

Oh, now that all the armies of Great Jin fall under her command, she regards them all as the Zhao Family Army.

The reputation of the profession of "soldier" was getting worse and worse; this was not their fault, but the pot of those in power. Just like customs, things changed bit by bit, and then the moral climate declined.

Soldiers once held a very high status in ancient times; before the Han Dynasty, not just anyone could serve in the army.

Qin, in order to unify the Six States, recruited commoners with promises of military merit; but before Qin, in the Spring and Autumn Period, those who could enlist and go to war were commoners with proper surnames, while nameless commoners and slaves were only fit to do logistics work and didn’t even have the qualification to step onto the battlefield.

There were all sorts of rules and rituals for going into battle, and compared with the bizarre and shameless confrontations on today’s battlefields, many wars back then were more like ritualized contests or grand military parades.

The early Han period was still all right; the army still enjoyed a good reputation and high prestige among the people—until the end of Han.

To fight over territory, powerful local warlords everywhere plundered people to use as soldiers. They fought back and forth, the common people couldn’t farm their land, and naturally couldn’t pay grain tax to the army.

When people are starving to the extreme, there’s nothing they won’t do. Without enough grain to feed the troops, what could they do?

Naturally, they robbed the common people of their property and grain. Massacres of villages and pillaging incidents became frequent; soldiers slowly became synonymous with bandits. Then, to make up military expenses, those in power simply sent soldiers to dig up graves, and the soldiers’ reputation became even worse.

The ones giving orders were the powerful, the scholars, the great clans, but the reputation of their entire class wasn’t too badly affected—criticism generally fell only on individuals. The soldiers who carried out the orders were different.

The soldiers’ reputation grew worse and worse. Moreover, because of top-down oppression, their lives became increasingly hard, and their avenues for promotion were repeatedly narrowed. They would conscript men from commoner households, recruit idle elements of society into the army, and even bring prisoners from the jails into the ranks—criminals, and those who had lost out in political struggles, were all shoveled into the army.

In the end, they simply grabbed people on the road, from kids of eleven or twelve to old men of forty or fifty—so long as one could lift a weapon, one would be swept straight into the army.

And so, the army’s reputation plunged even further.

Among the populace, the very mention of soldiers almost made people blanch. In the eyes of the common people, soldiers equaled bandits. The Zhao Family Army’s good name began with the fact that they never plundered the people, and it was also because Zhao Hanzhang hoisted the banner of justice.

Soldiers are heroes who protect their homes and the country; they deserve positive evaluations.

Thinking of the Zhao Family Army being seconded to manage the rivers at this very moment, Zhao Hanzhang personally wrote a piece in praise of the army and sent it to the court gazette.

Zhao Hanzhang said to Ming Yu, "The Imperial Censorate should also be rectified. It should not merely ’report on hearsay’ but must have the duty and authority to verify. I’d like you, sir, to come up with specific methods for reform."

"Reporting on hearsay" has the advantage of intimidating the entire officialdom: as long as there is a whisper of rumor, officials can be impeached without investigation. But its drawbacks are even more obvious. Because there is no need to verify, some Imperial Censors can fabricate hearsay—or not even fabricate, just claim they ’heard’ something and then submit an impeachment.

As a result, the relationship between the censors in the Imperial Censorate and the officials in charge of governance is like water and fire. This custom in Great Jin has been passed down, and that is why Imperial Censors always, by instinct, go looking for faults in the governing officials; if there are none, they manufacture some.

And local officials, as soon as they see an Imperial Censor, instinctively feel disgust. Before any work gets done, they’ve already started fighting among themselves.

From last year until now, Zhao Hanzhang has dispatched quite a few Imperial Censors to supervise the development of local government affairs. They did find many problems and did achieve some results, but very few were actually verified. Whenever they dug deeper, seven out of ten matters turned out to be fabricated rumors. Not only did this delay local work, it also greatly increased her workload.

Zhao Hanzhang naturally did not want supervisory officials and governing officials to be too harmonious and then join hands to deceive her and harm the common people, but she also did not want to intensify their conflicts and have them waste their energy on infighting.

So she wished to improve the supervisory laws, so that the Imperial Censorate would not only have the power to submit remonstrances, but also the authority to investigate and a portion of the power to handle matters. This would reduce baseless fabrications and shift more toward fact-checking.

But revising the law is not something that can be done in a day. Zhao Hanzhang asked Ming Yu to keep it in mind, but did not demand immediate results. "Strive to submit a memorial after next spring."

Ming Yu: ...And how different is that from telling me to do it now?

But Ming Yu still agreed.

She had talked far too much today. Now that business was done, Zhao Hanzhang lifted a cup of hot tea to moisten her throat and chatted with them casually. "Have all the taxes reached Luoyang? How much revenue has the national treasury taken in this year?"

Ji Yuan also set down his brush, picked up a cup of tea, and leaned back in his chair to chat idly. "Jingzhou’s has yet to arrive. Oh right, Yangzhou has also sent tax to the capital, though not much."

Zhao Hanzhang was surprised. "King Langya actually paid tax to me?"

She had really only tentatively sent official documents to Yangzhou, demanding they pay tax according to the newly promulgated court tax system, without expecting him to actually pay.

Ji Yuan smiled and said, "That shows King Langya’s skin isn’t quite thick enough yet."

Ming Yu looked up at them, then lowered his head again to continue writing.

Thinking of the historical evaluations of King Langya and Wang Dao—though more than a thousand years separate them, and those evaluations may not be entirely accurate—one can still see from some historical events that King Langya’s ability was limited, and his heart not ruthless enough; Wang Dao, though very clever, was too mild in character. With this combination, if it hadn’t been for great clans and powerful houses like Wang Dun’s clique using his power to act with impunity, ruler and minister might well have finished well. A pity.

Although Wang Dao later assisted King Langya’s son onto the throne and managed to govern Eastern Jin, King Langya himself did indeed die in depression, and the harmony between ruler and minister at the end was merely a superficial warmth.

Curious, Zhao Hanzhang asked Ji Yuan, "Sir, have you met Wang Dao?"

Ji Yuan nodded with a smile. "I have. In their early years in Luoyang, he and King Langya once came to pay a call on the Young Master. Both of them were gentle in temperament. King Langya is somewhat weak. With Wang Dao’s assistance, he’s not bad as a Feudal Lord, but if he wants to take another step up, it’s hard."

King Langya simply doesn’t have that ability.

And King Langya running off to Yangzhou to set up a separate regime was also because he listened to Wang Dao’s persuasion.

Then is it possible to persuade King Langya to return to Luoyang as a Prince and hand Yangzhou back to the court?

Just as she was thinking this, Zhao Hanzhang heard the sound of hurried footsteps rushing this way.

She lifted her eyes toward the doorway. In just an instant she lowered them again, took a sip of tea, and only when the cup had been set back on the table did Ji Yuan and Ming Yu, who had also heard the footsteps, turn their heads. The door was pushed open, and the Secretary from the intelligence office strode forward to report, "Great General, Jingzhou and Yangzhou have started fighting."