Chapter 460 Audience with the Emperor
Chapter 460 Audience with the Emperor
The next morning, Xiao Xia went to the imperial study to pay a visit to Emperor Yang Guang.
Yang Guang was in a good mood and issued an imperial decree to exempt Xiao Xia from all the etiquette of the audience. He invited his son directly to the imperial study, where the father and son had a closed-door meeting.
This was the first closed-door conversation since the emperor ascended the throne, and all the officials in the court and the country were stunned. Senior officials tried to inquire about the content of the secret conversation between the emperor and the Prince of Jin, but they still knew nothing. Even the right prime minister Yang Su didn't know, let alone others.
The father and son talked for a whole morning, and Yang Guang then hosted a banquet to entertain the Prince of Jin who had come from afar.
In the afternoon, Emperor Yang Guang summoned several prime ministers again.
Yang Guang said to Yuwen Shu: "I don't want to blame anyone for the King of Jin's breaking into the city gate. I just want to remind all the prime ministers to consider carefully when formulating various systems in the future. You can't just issue a system and then ignore it, so that others can't implement it in the end."
Seeing that Yuwen Shu didn't quite understand, Yang Guang continued, "The King of Jin has no liaison agency in the court. He doesn't know the rules for entering the city. When he arrives at the city, you tell him that he is not allowed to enter the city. What should he do? Should he wait outside the city for a few days and enter the city after obtaining a permit, or should he enter the city in batches according to the illegal method taught by Wei Wentong?
The correct approach is to send someone to Jiangdu to report immediately after the regulations are issued, and the General Administration Office will send someone to the capital to apply for a permit. The Ministry of War can even issue a temporary permit first, and then apply for a formal permit after the Prince of Jin enters the city.
In addition, we must treat everyone equally. We cannot allow the King of Qi to lead a thousand cavalrymen into the city without a permit, while the King of Jin cannot enter the city with 300 people. This kind of treatment that treats people differently is a bit unfair. "
Yuwen Shu was so shocked that he broke out in a sweat. He quickly said, "It is my fault for not investigating carefully. I will immediately apply for a new permit and ensure that such an incident will never happen again."
Yang Guang returned the memorial to Yuwen Shu and said, "Let's stop here and learn from it in the future."
Yang Guang didn't want to investigate further. If he did, Wei Wentong would definitely be in trouble. He would not be able to justify his double standards in treating the King of Qi and the King of Jin. Teaching Xiao Xia to divide the troops and go through other city gates was even more illegal.
Yuwen Shu was really annoyed when he received the memorial. He actually didn't know that Wei Wentong had allowed the King of Qi to enter the city without authorization. If he had known, he would never ask for trouble. Wei Wentong actually tricked him badly.
'Go back and deal with this bastard!'
Yang Guang then said to Prime Minister Yang Su: "The more than 1,000 warships stored in Jiangling have not been properly maintained and are gradually damaged. The Prince of Jin proposed that they be placed in the Jingkou Shipyard for maintenance, and all the expenses will be borne by the Jiangnan Road General Administration Office. I have agreed. In addition, the navy will be moved to Jiangdu for stationing. The wartime command will still be in my hands, but the daily training and management will be the responsibility of the Prince of Jin, who will also serve as the Grand Commander of the Navy."
The reason why Yang Guang was persuaded by Xiao Xia was the court's preparation for war against Goguryeo in Liaodong. Using military force against Goguryeo was the national policy of the Sui Dynasty, which began in the era of Emperor Wen of Sui. Xiao Xia proposed a strategy of advancing both by land and sea in response to this national policy.
Once the imperial court decided to attack Goguryeo, Xiao Xia would lead the navy to attack Pyongyang, the capital of Goguryeo. Xiao Xia promised Yang Guang that he would build a powerful navy within three years.
Moreover, all expenses were borne by the Jiangnan Road General Administration Office using the salt profits. More importantly, the wartime command and dispatch rights of the navy were still in the hands of the emperor. This made Yang Guang very satisfied. He readily agreed to Xiao Xia's package plan, including all the detailed plans from warships to navy.
The biggest difference between Yang Su and Gao Jiong is that Gao Jiong insisted on the power of the prime minister and dared to oppose the emperor's unreasonable decisions, while Yang Su was good at guessing the emperor's intentions and catering to the emperor. Not only Yang Su, but also the left prime minister Yang Da, the finance minister Yu Shiji, the military minister Yuwen Shu and the criminal minister Pei Yun were the same, each one was better than the other at guessing the emperor's intentions.
Therefore, the court during Gao Jiong's time was full of controversy, while the court during Yang Su's time was very smooth, with basically no opposition. Regardless of whether the emperor's decision was correct or not, they just followed it without compromise. But Yang Guang liked to make important decisions. He would not let everyone discuss whether it could be done or how to do it first. He would make decisions directly, and they must be done and executed immediately.
The people below would just carry out the order regardless of whether it was right or not. If they discovered a big problem halfway through the order, they could not turn back and discuss it again. First, the emperor had set a time limit. Second, it would be too wasteful to go back. Third, it would highlight the incompetence of the court and the emperor. So they had no choice but to continue executing the order. In the end, they paid a heavy price to complete the task assigned by the emperor.
This was the case with the construction of the Grand Canal. It was clearly a large-scale, long-term project, but because the emperor could not wait, he only gave one year. No one in the court dared to object, so the project was forced to be carried out as a short-term project, which meant a huge investment of manpower and material resources.
If it is a ten-year long project, then only 200,000 people would be enough, and then a new batch would be replaced every three months. In this way, it can be completed step by step, exchanging time for space, and the cost will be very small.
But it is obviously a long-term project of ten years. If it must be compressed into a short-term project of one year, then we can only exchange space for time and use huge manpower to build it. Two hundred thousand people are naturally far from enough. We must invest ten times, that is, two million people to carry out the construction.
The imperial court stipulated that two million people would be deployed every month to dig the canal. The first batch of two million people would dig for one month, and then another batch of two million people would dig for another month. That means at least six million people had to be prepared, working in three shifts.
But the problem is, where can the government find six million people to rotate? It would be good enough if it could send two million people.
This resulted in the number of people on the books being empty. In reality, these two million people had been working day and night, having to provide their own food. They had no tents, so they slept on the construction site. The livestock that were originally intended to assist in the work were slaughtered and eaten by the guarding troops.
The laborers could easily get sick due to poor eating and sleeping, and being exposed to the sun and rain. But even when they were sick, they could not rest and had to continue working at high intensity. This led to the death of a large number of laborers and naturally triggered a riot among the laborers. However, the resistance was not met with appeasement or improved management, but bloody suppression.
Add to this the instigation and deception and concealment of the Guanlong nobles, and layers of officials lying to their superiors. It was obvious that the people were struggling on the brink of death and that was why they rose up in resistance, but when it was reflected to the emperor, it was perceived that the Baohui was gathering people to rebel, so of course the emperor had to order a suppression.
It took only one year to dig a large canal, killing six or seven hundred thousand people. The consequence was that the people were filled with resentment. The honest people endured it in silence, while the angry people took up arms and rebelled against the imperial court.
A comparison will reveal that the current East Route Project of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project is a modern construction project that took eleven years, while in the Sui Dynasty it was all dug by manpower and the more than 1,000-kilometer canal was completed in just one year. What a huge price was paid for this, and these prices were ultimately borne by the people, and not a single dish was missing from the tables of dignitaries.
This is a bit off topic. Let's go back to the topic. Xiao Xia put forward three requests. The first was that Jiangnan Road should mint its own coins. Yang Guang agreed in principle, but with conditions. The condition was that half of the coins minted by Jiangnan Road should be handed over to the court every year, and Yang Guang could keep the other half for himself.
The second was about warships and navy, and Yang Guang also agreed, of course with conditions, the condition being that the wartime command of the navy would belong to the emperor.
The third is about the power of officials. Xiao Xia wanted to take away the power to appoint and dismiss officials except the governor, but Yang Guang did not fully agree with this. However, he also gave in and expanded the King of Jin's power to suspend, dismiss and recommend officials in the Jiangnan Road to county-level officials except the governor, but the power of appointment was still in the hands of the court.
This is a matter of principle. Even if it is just a formality, the most critical power to appoint officials must be in the hands of the court. This can be called a centralized system.
(End of this chapter)