Zhao Bing sent Wang Yinglin to Dengcheng to pacify the army. This move seemed to be light, but in fact he was quite nervous. He knew very well that although this matter could not lead to the rebellion of the officers and soldiers of the Eighth Army, if the handling was inappropriate, it would inevitably lead to the split of the Eighth Army, which would lead to a significant decline in combat effectiveness. At the critical moment when the war was imminent, he was unwilling to see it and did not want to have an uncontrollable situation.

Therefore, although Zhao Bing was not in Dengcheng that night, he could still imagine the difficulties of Wang Yinglin's trip. He not only had to persuade the troops coming not to take extreme actions, but also wanted to appease Zhang Ba and other generals of the Eighth Army to recognize the current powerful relationship and not to lose the big picture or commit acts that would harm the country and oneself because of small things, so as to cut himself off from the Song Dynasty and it would be difficult to look back.

After tossing and turning for a night, Ni Liang reported that Fancheng had been completely controlled. In this battle, more than 5,000 enemies were wiped out and more than 7,000 enemies were captured. Shi Bi, the general manager of the marching army in Jingxiang, and Alihan, guarding Fancheng, took a boat to cross the river in a hurry to Xiangyang on the other side. Because the pontoon bridge was destroyed, all the ships were robbed or burned by defeated soldiers, and they could not pursue them and escaped.

After the war, the counting was made, due to the short and fierce battle, and the main attack direction was chosen to be in the relatively empty east of the city, and the enemy fled quickly, so it was not enough to evacuate the people in the city. Therefore, many houses in the city were preserved, and the people suffered little. The officials cleaned up the granaries and obtained a total of 100,000 stones of food and grass, a number of weapons and armor, and seized 60,000 guan of gold and silver, 30,000 ingots of counterfeit banknotes in Mongolia, and the document album.

This morning, Ni Liang had already made a list to help the people, and dispatched officers and soldiers to count the casualties and property losses of the people, and helped the people repair damaged houses. At the same time, he convened the head of the city guild to help the army clean up the streets and alleys, bury the bodies, and the merchants were open to normal. The two gates in the city were allowed to go out of the city to pick wood, and the caravans were allowed to enter and exit normally. Under a series of measures, the people in the city gradually stabilized and orderly. After the government office was cleaned up, the emperor could enter the city.

Zhao Bing then ordered the camp to be pulled out, packed his luggage, and prepared to enter the city. At this time, a flying cavalry entered the camp and sent Wang Yinglin's letter. After reading it, he breathed a sigh of relief. In the letter, he reported that after meeting with Zhang Ba and other officials, they all expressed that they had no intention of rebelling against the Song Dynasty and were still loyal to Your Majesty. This turmoil in the army was due to poor communication between the upper and lower levels, which led to excessive behavior of some officers and soldiers.

Later, Wang Yinglin read out the imperial edict to the officers and soldiers of the Eighth Army, expressing His Majesty's attitude. Then he met with the military representatives who were "rebelling". They expressed their anger towards Zhang Ba's refusal to welcome him. He thought that His Majesty was unfaithful, so he spontaneously gathered to go to Fancheng to welcome him. He said that His Majesty was very grateful for their behavior, but did not encourage such acts of offending the superiors, so naturally he would not pursue them. After he met with the army again, the morale of the army had been temporarily stable, and the various divisions of the camp had been established.

After stabilizing the Eighth Army, Wang Yinglin held a separate meeting with Zhang Ba. Zhang Ba admitted that he had let down His Majesty's trust due to his selfish intentions and did something that was ungrateful, but he had absolutely no intention of being rebelled by the country. But now he has made a big mistake and is willing to go to Fancheng to apologize and resign as the chief commander of the Eighth Army.

After reporting on the process and results, Wang Yinglin thought that although the Eighth Army was a little stable at present, it was not suitable to adjust the generals of various units on a large scale to avoid causing new turmoil. Therefore, he suggested that Xie Mingquan, the Eighth Army's capital, lead the military and political affairs. One is that he is familiar with the situation in the army and has a high prestige among military generals at all levels; the other is that he sincerely surrendered when His Majesty entered Qiong, and has been loyal to the emperor for so many years, and is trustworthy; the third is that he had organized Yi soldiers to fight against the Yuan Dynasty in Qiongzhou and had the leading function, so he only needed to send another general who was proficient in military affairs as a supplement.

Zhao Bing felt that Wang Yinglin's suggestion was very pertinent and was conducive to the stability of the Eighth Army, but he was still a little hesitant. What he was worried about was not Xie Ming's ability, but about his unwillingness to take office. After all, the current distinction between civil and military officials was clear, and civil officials were unwilling to transfer capital to military generals...

Since the Tang and Song dynasties, with the expansion of the national military and the deepening of bureaucratic civil and military divisions, the situation of the grassroots organization of the military has become worse and worse. The hidden reasons behind this are not only the professionalization of the military and the corruption caused by the lack of supervision, but also closely related to the resource mobilization of grassroots society and the bureaucratic system of the central government.

During the Han Dynasty, in order to mobilize more resources from grassroots society, the central government incorporated a large number of local tyrants into the administrative management system through systems such as recommendations, honors and "three elders", which created a tendency to become aristocratic in the entire administrative system. The value orientation of the entire country was biased towards the aristocratic family, which eventually promoted the emergence of the Nine-rank Zhongzheng system and the political politics of the Eastern Jin Dynasty.

After the Sui Dynasty, the central government made drastic replacing the nine-rank Zhongzheng system with the imperial examination system, but it made the central government lose the direct connection between the gentry and the tyrants of the grassroots society and the tyrants, which made it difficult for the direct connection between the gentry and the tyrants to effectively mobilize the resources of the grassroots society. This is exactly one of the main lines of the great reforms throughout the Tang and Song dynasties. Specifically in terms of the military system, after the Middle Tang Dynasty, with the failure of the integration of local social resources, the system of government troops was no longer maintained. The central government and local vassal states were forced to organize professional troops, such as the central government and the fang soldiers of local vassal states.

However, in essence, professional soldiers are completely different from the government soldiers and the town soldiers. The conscription system and the government soldiers in the Han Dynasty were generally based on mobilizing local tyrants to indirectly mobilize local military resources. Although these rural soldiers in the Han Dynasty were not private armed forces of powerful people, they themselves belonged to local self-organized armed self-defense groups, and from which they coordinated, they organized these local tyrants.

Due to the constraints given by the village and clan rules, the self-defense armed forces in these places often obey the command of local tyrants and are self-sufficient. However, when the Tang Dynasty's military system collapsed, these newly established professional army troops were not subject to various informal systems in the village, and local finances were also difficult to pay the military expenses needed to support a large number of professional army.

It is precisely because of this characteristic of the professional army system that the Heshuo vassal states in the northern Central Plains frequently resisted the Jieshuo vassal states; and after the turmoil of Zhonghe, when the central government was unable to provide financial subsidies to these vassal states, these vassal states became independent and drew a clear line with the Tang court. Although professional army means more concentrated training, their connection with the commander is weaker.

Whether the army can perform its combat effectiveness well depends more on daily training and command art. Moreover, after the Song Dynasty, professional army belonged to the country, but often caused the army to be corrupt due to supervision difficulties. The Shence Army in the late Tang Dynasty and the Hebei Front Army in the late Northern Song Dynasty are good examples.

On the other hand, the overall quality of grassroots officers also declined to a certain extent. Due to the characteristics of the conscription system and the government system, commanders at all levels were often linked to the tyrants before the Tang Dynasty, but after the emergence of the professional military system, commanders and tyrants became decoupled. This is undoubtedly a good thing from a system perspective, but there is another problem, that is, soldiers from civilian origins did not receive a good education.

After the Song Dynasty, most private schools that emerged among the people were founded by local clans, and many were clan schools that served the clans. There were not many opportunities for civilians to receive education. Originally, if these clans were willing to enter the military system, the cultural literacy of the officers could still be guaranteed, but another issue was involved - that is, the issue of the division of civil and military channels.

The division of civil and military affairs is actually part of the efficiency reform of the bureaucratic system throughout the ancient China. After the Qin and Han Dynasties, China maintained unity for a long time, and all kinds of matters that occurred in the huge territory ultimately needed to be screened and gathered to the central government, which required the central government to have higher government affairs processing efficiency. This also gave rise to the departmentalization of the Three Dukes and Nine Ministers system and the local administrative organizations.

When the Tang Dynasty was established, further inheriting the efficiency reforms of the Wei and Jin Dynasties was to establish the system of three provinces and six ministries. In terms of bureaucratic groups, although there were clerical and military ranks in ranks, there were no strict conversion restrictions. Until the early Northern Song Dynasty, bureaucrats still had the possibility of "going to go to the generals and ministers": bureaucrats went out to serve as generals, and in the court, they handled government affairs. "going to go to the generals and ministers" itself is the best proof that the bureaucrats had not yet divided the two paths of civil officials and military officers in their positions. However, unclear differentiation of positions hindered the improvement of efficiency in the entire national administrative system and military system.

Modern production theory emphasizes division of labor because division of labor can indeed improve efficiency. Civil officials are full-time political affairs and military officials are full-time military affairs, which is theoretically more efficient. The central government in the Tang and Song dynasties needed more efficient reforms than previous generations and future generations. This is because during the Tang and Song dynasties, the administrative range of the central government was too large, resulting in too complicated government affairs.

Under this pressure, the three provinces and six ministries began to transform into the Zhongshu system with higher government affairs processing efficiency. One of the results was the development of the trend of division between civil and military affairs. Until the reign of Emperor Renzong of Song Dynasty, Fan Zhongyan was responsible for handling the military affairs of the Western Xia starting from refusing to change the military ranks. The professions of civil and military bureaucrats officially diverged and rarely changed to each other.

Not only that, during the Song Dynasty, there was a separation between bureaucrats and soldiers, that is, soldiers were affiliated with military status, while bureaucrats belonged to the bureaucratic system. Civil officials were sometimes condescending to military status, but the entire bureaucrat, including civil and military officials, had more serious discrimination against military status. At that time, Di Qing, a general who was found in the northwest of Fan Zhongyan and others, was excluded because he was affiliated with military status, rather than military officials in the bureaucratic system, and it was difficult to gain a foothold in the Privy Council.

Because of these problems, a large number of talents are more willing to enter the bureaucratic system through the imperial examinations, and at most they are circulated in the military transfer system, and are not keen on the issue of enlistment. At the same time, military command needs certain talents and talents. For example, the transformation of various formations requires certain calculations and thinking, and relatively effective arrangements are made based on the terrain and the situation of our enemies. This is especially true for compound formations composed of multiple basic formations. Commanders even need to understand mathematics to arrange the transformation of formations.
Chapter completed!