Established a thousand-year family from the end of Qin Dynasty

Chapter 674 Competing in the Central Plains (99)

Autumn of the eighth year of the Republic 460 (678)
The Khitan cavalry drove straight in, until they reached the vicinity of Changshan Mountain. Wherever they went, people were devastated.

The local government has no military power, and facing the attack of the Khitans, they can only hide in the city walls to protect themselves. They watched the rural Tang people being taken away as slaves by the Khitans, and they could only wait for the Tang Dynasty to send troops to support them.

Some people suggested that the Empress Dowager Emperor restore the system of local generals (jiedushi) in the Northern Qi Dynasty, and appoint generals who control military power in the frontier, so as to resist the invasion of barbarians at any time.

"Release military power to the localities, let the localities defend themselves against the barbarians, and save the need to send troops from the central government to support them every time. By the time the central government sends troops to support them, the barbarians have already returned home full of rewards."

However, the Emperor and Empress did not agree.

After the empire's territory is large, the situation of local military power will naturally appear, because there is no way to do it. If the military power is not released to the local area, such a large territory must be supported by the central government thousands of miles away every time. Too much trouble.

[Government limit] When the territory of the dynasty exceeds the limit of rule, either release the power to the local area, or watch the local area being ravaged by the enemy country, you can only choose one of the two.

This is the same as abolishing history and establishing animal husbandry. It is not that abolishing history and establishing animal husbandry destroyed the empire, but that the empire has already been destroyed and has to continue its life for decades by abolishing history and establishing animal husbandry.

[Drink poison to quench thirst] If you drink poisoned wine, you will be poisoned to death later, but if you don't drink poisoned wine, you will die of thirst now!
Seemingly stupid decisions are often the best solution at the time.

The level of technology, political structure, geography, and climate can all affect the ruling limit of a dynasty.

As strong as the Tang Dynasty, after reaching the limit of rule, there is nothing to do in the face of the looting of the Khitan people.

Too far, really too far!
He was still fighting in the Western Regions yesterday, and today he is going to fight in Youyun, it is too far away!
By the time the main force of the central imperial court of the Tang Dynasty arrived at Youyun, the Khitan people had long since fled back to the grassland, and those common people of the Tang Dynasty had already been sold to Yan as slaves.

The main force of the Tang Dynasty is still regrouping, and it will take a long time before they reach Youyun, Shandong, Hebei.

During this period of time, the country of Yan can freely attack cities and territories in Shandong.

When the main force of the Tang Dynasty was about to arrive in Shandong, the main force of the Yan State had already run back to Liaodong with the wealth and population from the robbery, and the Tang army could only look at the sea and sigh.

Qizhou
Licheng
Yan Jun kept robbing in Shandong, and finally came to the capital of Qizhou.

The traditional old city walls of Zhuzhou County in Shandong were quickly destroyed in front of the artillery of the Yan army, and all the people in the city were reduced to slaves and sold to plantations one by one.

Yan State's goal is very clear, either to occupy Shandong, or simply to rob, so it has no interest in winning the hearts of Shandong people.

There is no natural danger in this place in Shandong, and it is too close to the Central Plains. Even if the Yan Kingdom occupies it, it will not be able to hold it, so it is not occupied at all, but only robbed.

If you forcibly occupy the territory that you can't digest, you will only lose your money, and you will vomit as much as you eat in the end.

"Now that the five hundred Yanlu troops are coming to attack, each family needs to send troops to resist!"

The governor of Qizhou summoned the powerful and wealthy merchants of the state and called on them to donate money to send troops.

Although the local government cannot recruit soldiers explicitly, which is tantamount to rebellion, but every family has servants, and these servants are not only servants, but also can be used as militiamen.

Hearing that Yan State had [-] troops, the gentry in Licheng City of Qizhou looked solemn. They did not expect Yan State to attach so much importance to Qizhou that they would send [-] troops to attack.

There are only 1000 officers and soldiers in Licheng, and with the addition of servants from each family, there are only [-] people.

These 1000 people are all crooked melons and cracked dates. It is okay to bully the common people a little on weekdays, but if they really have to face the regular army, they have no combat effectiveness at all.

At this critical juncture, Wang Bo also wrote a poem "Send the Governor of Qizhou".

In the poem, the governor of Qizhou is encouraged not to be afraid. There are a thousand defenders in Licheng, but the Yan army who came to attack the city is only 500 people.

Facing the poem presented by the great poet, the governor of Qizhou happily accepted it, but when he saw the encouragement in the poem, he smiled wryly.

"Although there are a thousand militiamen in Licheng, they are all crooked melons and cracked dates. How can they be the opponent of Yan's five hundred regular army? What's more, Yan's army also carries three cannons!"

Artillery has always been a big killer that the Central Plains cannot manufacture.

Sun Simiao spent his whole life working hard to develop gunpowder, firecrackers, and fireworks for the Tang Dynasty, but he died of mental exhaustion and had no time to further study firecrackers and cannons.

Sun Simiao alone wants to catch up with the painstaking efforts accumulated by countless artisans and genius doctors in the Yan Kingdom for hundreds of years, which is really like an ant shaking a tree.

After the citizenship system was formally established in the form of legal provisions, there has been no second Sun Simiao incident in the Republic.

Craftsmen can pass the [Craftsman Section] in the civil examination of the Republic, become citizens, enjoy the right to vote and be elected, do not have to pay poll tax and corvee, and can receive free rations (cheap stinky dried fish) every month.

The imperial examination system of the Republic is different from that of the Tang Dynasty. The imperial examination system of the Republic has canceled the Four Books and Five Classics, and at the same time added some subjects that can directly create wealth value.

For example [craftsmanship] [medicine] [navigation] [military] [law] [agriculture], and so on.

However, no matter what the subject is, it will be mixed with some "sacred religion" content, mainly to examine the history of the ancestors of the Republic.

However, the Imperial Examinations of the Republic did not have a special [Sacred Textbook], but it was mixed into the content of the exam as general common sense, and the proportion of scores was very low, only 5%, which did not have a great impact on the examiners.

For example, the knowledge of the ancestor Kang to save the world, and the ancestors of the Wang family influenced the Goguryeo people with benevolence, righteousness and morality, and persuaded the Goguryeo people to voluntarily migrate to the bitter cold land further north, and let the rich black land be reclaimed by the Yan people.

Compared with the imperial examinations in the Central Plains, the imperial examinations in the Republic have clearer divisions, and the content of the examinations is more practical, and all free citizens can sign up for a fee.

In order to earn money from the freedmen, the Republic has exhausted all means, and even allowed all freedmen to take the imperial examination, just to earn some registration fees.

In the imperial examination of the Tang Dynasty in the Central Plains, only the sons of officials with a fifth rank or higher, or a letter of recommendation from an official with a fifth rank or higher, can participate in the imperial examination.

What does it mean?In other words, if you are the son of a wealthy businessman in Suiye City, even if you are talented and intelligent, you have to spend money to bribe a court official with a fifth rank or above to write you a letter of recommendation, otherwise you will not even be able to take the exam. None of the qualifications.

Not only that, Datang's imperial examination is a public-name system, that is, the candidate's name is directly exposed. The examiner who reviews the test paper can directly know which prince this test paper belongs to, and then decide whether to admit it or not based on his background.

Not only that, the content of the examination is also Confucian classics and Taoist classics. Originally, there were only Confucian classics in the Sui Dynasty, but Li Tang thought he was a descendant of Lao Tzu, so he added Taoist classics to the imperial examination.

It can be seen that the imperial examination system in the Central Plains is specially provided for the children of the rich and powerful, so that the children of the rich and powerful can compete on the same platform. As for ordinary people, they do not even have the qualifications to enter the platform, so there is no such thing as fair and unfair competition up.

However, even if it is so unfair, compared with the nine-rank Zhongzheng system in the Jin Dynasty, the imperial examination system of the Tang Dynasty is already relatively fair.

In the imperial examination system of the Tang Dynasty, at least the minor dignitaries were eligible to participate. The Jiupin Zhongzheng System of the Eastern Jin Dynasty has been completely controlled by the Langya Wang family and other aristocratic families, and ordinary minor dignitaries are not eligible to be promoted.

This is due to the different considerations of the imperial examination system in the two countries of Yan and Tang. What Yan State thought was, on the one hand, to obtain talents who can make money, and on the other hand, to make money by the way. The imperial examination system appeases a large number of small dignitaries/ordinary gentry, thereby maintaining stability.

One thinks about how to make money, and the other thinks about how to maintain stability. The starting point is different, and the form of the imperial examination system will naturally be different.

(End of this chapter)