Chapter 296 Search (I)

It was another sunny morning.

The camphor trees all over the palace were filled with full birds. They were hiding under the leaves covered with dewdrops and closed their eyes and slept slightly. They shouted happily for a morning that they had such a moment of quietness.

There was silence in the Lotus Dance Garden. Occasionally, there were yellow palace maids walking through it, and they deliberately took their pace, for fear of causing a little extra movement.

In the lotus pond, which accounts for two-thirds of the entire lotus dance garden, the green lotus leaves are stretching out, shaking the dewdrops on their bodies under the breeze, welcoming the nourishment of the sunshine above our heads.

In the center of the pond in the Hewu Garden, a pavilion in the middle of the lake is connected to the main hall by a long corridor. The corridors of the main hall are carved beams and painted buildings, with bright colors and extremely gorgeous appearance.

With a light "ga", the door more than two meters high was gently pushed open. Xiao Fugui walked out of the hall, looked at the sun above his head, then retracted his steps, walked gently to the inner hall in the hall, stood in front of the exquisite door and called gently: "Your Majesty, it's already seven o'clock, it's time to get up."

"I understand." Li Ming's half-dream and half-awake response came from the inner hall.

Ten minutes later, Li Ming's voice sounded again: "I'm going to get up, come in."

As the sound fell, a pair of palace maids came out from the hall next to the hall. Headed by Xiaorou, he pushed open the door of the inner hall and walked in. Li Ming's day was about to begin again.

Compared with the emperors who had to attend the morning court when the sun was coming out in the past, Li Ming's life was so comfortable. In the early summer, the sun at seven o'clock had risen very high. At this time, Li Mingzhen can be said to be the laziest emperor in history.

Since the Soviet invading troops were successfully wiped out half a year ago, there has been no large-scale war in the Tang Dynasty. In the face of Li Ming's powerful military force, all the prefectures in the Tang Dynasty have no ability to resist. Therefore, from south to north, from east to west, in just two months, all the previously neutral prefectures have taken the initiative to express their loyalty to the court. At present, except for the part of Youzhou, which is still under the control of Li Jiao, all the other areas have been ruled by Li Ming.

It’s not that Li Jiao’s troops in Youzhou are so powerful. The terrain of that place is too steep. It seems that almost all the mountains and ridges of the Tang Dynasty have gathered there. There are almost no empty plains in Youzhou. After two months of conquest, Zhuo Junhao’s army still has a large number of rebels hiding in the mountains and forests of Youzhou. All of the mountains and forests are uninhabited areas, which makes Zhuo Junhao unable to find the enemy. In desperation, he had to place a large number of soldiers in Youzhou to prevent Li Jiao’s remnants from taking the opportunity to attack and harass him in the future.

Linzhou is similar to that of Youzhou. The endless primeval forests provide the best cover for Li Jiao's army, so that Li Ming's large army could not find the other party. Now, Ren Yong, who is specifically responsible for Linzhou's defense, commanded 150,000 Jing and stationed there. Compared with the people of less than 500,000 Linzhou, the proportion of soldiers is too high.

Except for the two more difficult areas, Youzhou and Linzhou, the rest of the places have been completely controlled by Li Ming. Although some remote areas are still the original officials, the newly established supervision system is spread throughout the Tang Dynasty. After cleaning up a large number of corrupt officials in the early stage, the rest of the officials have become very careful. In any case, they dare not make fun of their lives. Therefore, the new legal and administrative system formulated by Li Ming according to the development model of Jiangzhou and Huzhou is gradually being implemented throughout the Tang Dynasty.

After the localities were basically settled, Li Ming made many changes to the political institutions of the Tang Dynasty. According to his original organizational structure, the original system of decentralization of power of the three provinces was abolished, and replaced it with the Prime Minister's Office, the Commander's Office, the Supervision Office, the Security Department, and the Judicial Department. The Prime Minister's Office was still the Prime Minister's Office, and the 18 ministerial departments including the Ministry of Agriculture, Industry, the Human Resources Office, the Finance Department, the Ministry of Transportation, and the Ministry of Commerce. The Chairman of the Commander's Office was still the King of Saints, who was in charge of the military. The Supervision Department was separated from the original Security Department, and Chen Hao, who had been in charge of industrial development, was responsible for monitoring officials from all over the country. In the six months since its establishment, there were at least more than 1,000 officials who fell into the hands of the Supervision Department, which made all officials involuntarily wait and see when they heard the name of the Supervision Department.

The Security Department, which Malin is responsible for, mainly faces hostile forces abroad and domestic rebellion. They will never let go of those who threaten the safety of the Tang Dynasty. At the same time, they are also responsible for intelligence work at home and abroad. The Ministry of Security's spies are everywhere at home and abroad. The dense intelligence network is everywhere, complementing each other and cooperating with the Ministry of Supervision to jointly maintain the order and security of the Tang Dynasty. At the same time, the Ministry of Security is also responsible for inspecting every move in the army. For officers, the members of the Ministry of Security are their tight-knit curse.

The establishment of the Judicial Administration officially separated the legal system of the Tang Dynasty from the administrative system and became an independent law enforcement department. No matter who is a senior official, including Gao Wei, Saint Wang, Ma Lin and Chen Hao, they are within their surveillance. Investigators within the Judicial Administration are everywhere, making it impossible for those personnel from the Supervision Administration and the Security Department to do whatever they want. In this way, the departments established by Li Ming restricted each other, preventing the corruption of officials and the abuse of power to the greatest extent.

The leaders of these five departments were all those who followed Li Ming from the beginning. It’s not that Li Ming was nepotism. The existing Tang Dynasty officials did not have anyone familiar with Li Ming’s thoughts. Only the first few people who followed Li Ming knew Li Ming’s ideas and ideals best. If it were the original Tang Dynasty officials, they would not be able to implement Li Ming’s ideas at all.

It is worth mentioning that Li Ming added a clause on gender equality to his basic regulations. Although this clause seemed too advanced in this era, Li Ming believes that with the progress of society, people in this era will gradually accept this concept. In Jiangzhou and Huzhou, which Li Ming ruled first, this situation seemed relatively better. Not only did he buy and sell women and abuse his wife and family, but many women also joined the silk workshops on Biquan Island, where their income even exceeded that of the men in their family. Therefore, in these areas, the status of women is gradually increasing. At the same time, when Li Ming appointed officials, he used his actions to show that he implemented gender equality.

With his determination, Xiao Cui, who had been the financial leader of Biquan Island for a long time, was officially appointed as the Minister of Finance, and was in charge of the country's financial power. This caused a huge wave among the former officials of the Tang Dynasty. According to Xiao Cui's position, the original official position of the Tang Dynasty should be the Minister of the Ministry of Revenue. This most critical position in the Tang Dynasty would be the biggest challenge to the Tang Dynasty's ancestor system. For this reason, many old ministers, including Shen Tong, knelt at the door of Li Ming's bedroom day and night, begging Li Ming to take back his orders. However, Li Ming had made up his mind and let them beg him hard. Li Ming was not moved. The old ministers knelt at Li Ming for two days, and were forced to walk to the Imperial Hospital by the personal guards and lost two days of glucose and other nutrient solution.

Seeing Li Ming's attitude firm, the old ministers started to cry and complain, and when they heard that Li Ming actually let women in power, Li Song was also very confused. However, Li Ming's attitude was extremely firm this time. No matter how hard Li Song tried, he could not let Li Ming's attitude loose. In the end, even Li Song was helpless, and this matter was just a fait accompli.

Xiao Cui was in charge of the finances of the entire Tang Dynasty. Although the old ministers could not accept a woman as a senior official in the court, the departments they were responsible for always had to deal with the Ministry of Finance. Just like Chen Tong, the Ministry of Industry, who was responsible for, needed to deal with the Ministry of Finance every day. Therefore, although they felt uncomfortable, for their own work, they had to bite the bullet and recognize Xiao Cui's status.

With a sound government agency, Li Ming's work has been relatively relaxed. In addition to some major decision-making and policy issues, he generally does not interfere in the work of his subordinates. Of course, as the emperor, the palace spies in his hands are not decorations. Every day, the intelligence of various departments and the situation of officials are sent to Man'er. As the administrative director, Zhang Yao and Man'er have the responsibility to assist Li Ming in managing the world. The work of monitoring his subordinates and collecting official intelligence fell into Man'er's hands. Fortunately, Man'er is familiar with this and analyzing intelligence is her specialty. Therefore, Li Ming is not worried that his subordinates will lose control.

In addition to the spies in the palace, medical and physical education members spread all over the country and even various departments are also Li Ming's main eyes and ears. As the leader of the Medical God Cult, he is extremely holy in the eyes of those religious believers. He even said that his identity as the leader is more useful than his emperor. Every day, the personnel who are responsible for intelligence in the Medical God Cult will send the situations in various places to the palace by telegram, and through the selection of Li Ming's special intelligence team, they can streamline useful information and summarize them to Man'er.

In the harem, Li Ming gave Zhang Yao, Lin Long and Man'er the titles of queen to show his equality. Ministers have long been accustomed to Li Ming's unconventional approach, so there is no objection to his decision.

In addition to institutional reforms, Li Ming also changed the traditional way of morning court for thousands of years. Since each department performs its own duties, he will promptly inform Li Ming's secretariat through a well-connected telephone network. Therefore, morning court is no longer necessary. In particular, morning court requires officials to get up early before dawn and rush to the palace to wait for the beginning of morning court. This is really a torture for those senior officials who are busy with trouble. Most of the time every day is spent on the way to the morning court, and in unnecessary arguments in the hall. Therefore, Li Ming moved the morning court time to nine o'clock in the morning, which not only allowed those officials to no longer suffer from the pain of getting up early, but also gave them time to deal with some urgent matters in their departments during the morning period, and at the same time allowed them to prepare for the issues that the morning court should discuss, which will greatly improve the work efficiency of officials.

It is because of the efforts of the past six months that Li Ming has time to have a good night's sleep with Zhang Yao. Although Man'er is already the nominal queen, she has always been obedient to Li Ming and shows rare stubbornness in marrying Li Ming. She repeatedly expressed her desire to marry Li Ming with Lin Long. In desperation, Li Ming has spent the night with Zhang Yao.

After Li Ming finished washing, it was almost 7:30. He met with B in the main hall of the hall and learned about what happened last night. Then, he had breakfast with Zhang Yao and Man'er. On the table, Man'er reported to him about the situation compiled by the morning intelligence team. In this way, before Li Ming went to court, he had already roughly understood the general situation across the country between the afternoon of the previous day and the morning of that day.

Since the organization stabilized, Li Ming spent this every morning. At the beginning, Li Mingzhen was happy that he could get rid of the cumbersome government affairs, but as time went by, the government affairs that had already been relaxed made him feel bored. Li Ming's nature was idle. Over the years, the heavy burden made him dare not slack off. For example, today's peace, the remaining work is how to improve the national strength of the Tang Dynasty and the living standards of the people. This kind of work is not necessarily for him to do. As long as he formulates a major policy and development direction, people from all departments under his command will do a good job. Therefore, sometimes Li Ming himself feels that it is necessary to care about various things so tired every day.

After breakfast, Li Ming came to the study and analyzed the current situation and the special requirements for various departments based on the situation he got in the morning. This is a must-do homework every day. For half a year, Li Ming has been really diligent.

At nine o'clock, Li Ming came to the Political Consultative Hall on time and started the morning court for the whole day.

To be honest, Li Ming had already known the situation reported by various departments in the morning. Now he just saw if there was any situation he didn't know about. Therefore, Li Ming would patiently listen to the reports of one person after another. The dull reward made Li Ming feel very bored every time. However, sometimes there were some situations that could make Li Ming wake up from his drowsiness. Just like now, Malin's information made Li Ming pay more attention.

"Since the pacification of the Tang Dynasty, bandits in various places have become less and less under the siege of garrisons. However, recently, this situation seems to have begun to change in the Linzhou area. Although Linzhou has a 150,000-strong army of Renjian, the bandits in Linzhou have not stopped for a day. Just last night, new information came from Linzhou Bianlin City, saying that a large number of strangers appeared in a small town east of Linzhou. Those people seemed to appear suddenly. At present, our people are paying close attention to them, and there is no latest information yet."
Chapter completed!