Chapter 1300 A new round of disarmament!
Yijing, the Imperial Palace

Ye Mingsheng slept until he woke up naturally, had a simple breakfast and went to the study to start working. Ye Mingsheng never thought of himself as a workaholic like Lao Zhu and Ye Zhupi Lao Si. He also liked to eat, drink and have fun, but unfortunately, some things still required Ye Mingsheng to check and set the tone.

The first thing Ye Mingsheng read was the memorial from the General Staff. Although Ye Mingsheng had plans to expand into some border areas in the south, those were just some local battles. In Ye Mingsheng's opinion, the First Army was enough to handle them, so for now, resting and recuperating would be the main theme of the Daqian Dynasty for some time to come!
Under the peaceful external environment, Ye Mingsheng also intended to carry out disarmament in order to alleviate financial difficulties and reduce military expenditures.

There were actually different opinions in the General Staff regarding Ye Mingsheng's idea of ​​disarmament. Among them, the attitude of Ma Zhongjun, the Deputy Chief of the General Staff, was relatively clear.

Ma Zhongjun believes that the entire standing army of Fengwu Army currently consists of only five armies and fifteen divisions, with a total strength of only more than 300,000. Considering the current territory of Da Zhou, this total number of troops is not large or even enough. Therefore, Ma Zhongjun believes that although the external environment of Daqian is very safe at present, in order to prepare for emergencies, these 300,000 troops should be retained.

Many people in the General Staff supported Ma Zhongjun's opinion. They believed that it is better to be safe than sorry. The external environment could change at any time, so disarmament should be considered in the long term and with extreme caution...
During the heated discussion in the General Staff, Cai Peng, the first-class staff officer of the General Staff, came up with an idea!
Cai Peng believes that there are some veterans in the Fengwu Army. These veterans have made many contributions to the Fengwu Army. They are also the backbone of the Fengwu Army. Therefore, they also get more military pay. Maybe the military pay of one veteran is higher than the sum of the pays of two or three recruits.

Not only that, over the years, the age of this group of people has gradually increased, from their twenties to their thirties. Although their age has enriched their experience, their physical strength has become increasingly poor, which has led to a decline in their overall combat effectiveness.

Veterans like this are not uncommon in the entire Fengwu Army. A rough estimate is that there are over 10,000 of them. Therefore, if these people can be allowed to leave the army, a large part of the military pay expenditure can be reduced, and the vacant vacancies can also be filled by finding outstanding people from the local militia.

In this way, the total number of Fengwu Army will not decrease, and the military pay expenditure can be reduced by a considerable amount. There are few supporters of Cai Peng's idea in the General Staff, and some opponents believe that doing so will discourage the soldiers and affect the morale of the army.

Some people even said that Cai Peng, who proposed this suggestion, had ulterior motives and wanted to ruin Ye Mingsheng's reputation, so that the soldiers of Fengwu Army would think that Ye Mingsheng was getting rid of him after he had done his job. Therefore, Cai Peng should be killed, and Ye Mingsheng should be asked to kill Cai Peng to calm the army's hearts...

Seeing that there were too many opposing voices, Cai Peng could not withstand the pressure from these people and took the initiative to submit a petition to Ye Mingsheng.

Although there were many voices of opposition to Cai Peng's suggestion in the General Staff, Ye Mingsheng was very interested in Cai Peng's suggestion. For this reason, Ye Mingsheng asked Zhao Han to count the number of these "meritorious veterans", their positions, and how much military pay the court would pay them each year.

After Zhao Han spent half a month on statistics, he sorted out the contents and handed them over to Ye Mingsheng. According to Zhao Han's report, these meritorious veterans totaled more than 21,000 people. Not counting the bounties issued by the court after winning battles in the past three years, the court would pay them a total of 200,000 taels of silver in military pay every year.

Seeing this number, Ye Mingsheng gradually made up his mind. Ye Mingsheng knew that these people were all heroes of the Fengwu Army and had made great contributions to the establishment of the Daqian Dynasty. But unfortunately, the times are progressive, and the internal situation of the army naturally cannot remain unchanged.

Ye Mingsheng's current idea is that all meritorious veterans over the age of 30 below the rank of captain will be forced to retire under a one-size-fits-all policy, except for those with outstanding performance in the division who can be exempted and continue to stay in the army.

Although these people had to be discharged from the army, Ye Mingsheng did not mean to ignore them and let them return to their hometown to fend for themselves!
Ye Mingsheng thought of three preferential policies for them. The first preferential policy was to let the county and prefectural governments in various places assign some jobs as constables and runners to these meritorious veterans after they returned to their hometowns.
However, there are limited jobs for constables and police officers, and it is impossible to place all of them there. Only some relatively outstanding personnel can be placed there, and they must undergo training and assessment before taking up the posts. Only those who pass the assessment can serve as constables and police officers····················

The second method is that if these meritorious veterans want to work after retiring, the businesses that recruit them can give them a certain degree of tax reduction.

The third method is that if these meritorious veterans want to return to their hometowns to farm after retiring, or want to open a small business such as a restaurant, a blacksmith shop, or a grocery store, then the prefectures and counties everywhere should give them certain tax reductions.

In short, although Ye Mingsheng chose to lay them off due to financial pressure, Ye Mingsheng still hoped to properly resettle them so that these brothers could live a better life in the second half of their lives, and would not regret following him, Ye Mingsheng, to conquer the world, and would not curse him behind his back for being unkind and unjust.

After these people leave, it is estimated that 150,000 taels of military expenditure can be saved. Ye Mingsheng plans to invest all of this money in the development and construction of the navy and the development of firearms. The First Manufacturing Bureau is currently researching a more advanced and powerful cannon than the Red Cannon. Now is the time when money is needed to support scientific research.

In addition to the issue of military layoffs, the Censorate also reported a new problem within the military, which is that there is a certain degree of corruption within the military, and it involves high-level military officials and dozens of people. The Censorate has already obtained certain evidence, but there is still some distance to get to the bottom of it.

Regarding this situation, Ye Mingsheng originally planned to let the Censorate and the Military Commission jointly investigate, but Chu Zhiyi suspected that the Military Commission was also involved in this matter··················

Ye Mingsheng also had some considerations about this. Under his rule, the two systems of civil officials and military generals had always been separated. Apart from discussing military expenditures and logistical support during wars, the two sides did not have much communication.

This matter involves the internal affairs of the army. If the military department is not notified, it will easily cause some friction during the investigation, which will be detrimental to the unity within Daqian.

In response to this concern, Chu Zhiyi also made a separate report to Ye Mingsheng, showing some evidence he had obtained. These evidences showed that these military officers were also breaking the law knowingly and were in the midst of defeat, and some of them even acted as protectors.

After seeing this, Ye Mingsheng agreed with Chu Zhiyi's opinion and allowed the Censorate to investigate the matter alone. He also instructed Chu Zhiyi to eradicate all evil and investigate it to the end without any leniency!

Chu Zhiyi was also very excited about Ye Mingsheng's support. He also signed a military order to assure Ye Mingsheng that he would catch this big tiger hidden in the army within a month and bring him and his gang to justice.

Ye Mingsheng was very satisfied with Chu Zhiyi's work attitude. Although Ye Mingsheng had not finished his southern tour when he ordered Chu Zhiyi to be transferred from Yunbing Anchashi to Zuodu Yushi, Ye Mingsheng's eyes had always been paying attention to Chu Zhiyi. Ye Mingsheng originally expected Chu Zhiyi to take drastic measures to eradicate some termites after he came to the job, escort the deepening reform of the court, and charge into battle. However, after having a meal with Gu Sansi, Chu Zhiyi disappeared...
After learning about this situation, Ye Mingsheng was a little worried that he had made a mistake. He was afraid that Chu Zhiyi was the same slippery old fox as Xiao Lingyu, who was unwilling to offend others for the sake of the court's cause.

After thinking about it, Ye Mingsheng decided to let the bullets fly for a while to give Chu Zhiyi some time. Sure enough, after Ye Mingsheng ascended the throne, he opened fire and directly reported the major case in the army, and then impeached Zheng Ping, the governor of Youyan.

Ye Mingsheng was also very satisfied with this. Although he promoted Zhang Zhiwen to be the governor of Youyan, he was not very satisfied with Zhang Zhiwen's attitude in implementing the reform, especially on the issue of layoffs. The Youyan Provincial Government and the various prefectures and county offices under it only laid off more than 30 people in total.

Although Ye Mingsheng and the important officials in the court reached a unanimous opinion that not to move too many members of the old team, the problem was that thirty people were too few. The entire Youyan Provincial Administration, the government offices in various places, and the county offices together had more than three thousand people who were paid by the court. How many of them were redundant?

Ye Mingsheng knows that many of Youyan's G members have backgrounds, so this makes Zhang Zhiwen a little cautious to a certain extent, so Zhang Zhiwen is now waiting to see how the ZZ wind direction will be.

Ye Mingsheng was extremely disgusted with Zhang Zhiwen's behavior. What he needed was a governor who was determined and could do his job well, not a political opportunist...

Therefore, Ye Mingsheng strongly supports Chu Zhiyi's investigation into the behavior of Youyan Provincial Government. The evidence Chu Zhiyi has found so far shows that Zheng Pinggan has indeed done a lot of corrupt and illegal things, and Zhang Zhiwen, as his direct superior, must be responsible for negligence.

However, these evidences also show that Zheng Ping did all these things without telling Zhang Zhiwen. Zhang Zhiwen did not participate in these things, nor did he cover up for Zheng Ping when he knew that he was committing a crime. Currently, because of this incident involving Zheng Ping, Zhang Zhiwen and Gu Sansi, who jointly recommended Zheng Ping, have both submitted petitions to apologize!

Ye Mingsheng has not yet figured out how to deal with Zhang Zhiwen and Gu Sansi, but Ye Mingsheng hopes that these two people can be more cautious in doing things, especially when recommending people, they should have more understanding of the recommended candidates. Ye Mingsheng hopes that Zhang Zhiwen and Gu Sansi can learn from this lesson.

Ye Mingsheng was busy all morning and finished his morning work at 2:45 p.m. Ye Mingsheng wanted to have a bite to eat, but unexpectedly a nanny came to inform Ye Mingsheng that Empress Dowager Ye Cui invited Ye Mingsheng to have lunch.

Ye Mingsheng didn't think much about it and came to the palace where Ye Cui was. Ye Cui was also very happy about Ye Mingsheng's arrival.

"Mingsheng! I heard that you are handling official business late at night now?"

"Don't worry, Mom. I just had some urgent business to deal with a few days ago, so I worked until the evening. Normally, I finish work at twilight hour!"

"Mingsheng, I know there are many things to do in the establishment of the new dynasty, but you still have to take care of your health. You can leave the less important things to the ministers. These people are also old ministers who have worked with you for many years!"

Ye Mingsheng smiled and nodded:
"Mom, I understand what you mean..."

Ye Cui wanted to continue speaking, but seeing that Ye Mingsheng's words seemed perfunctory, she changed the subject and said:
"Mingsheng, now that you are the emperor, you should start the selection of talents!"

"You are now in your prime, you should give birth to more offspring for the Ye family!"

Seeing Ye Cui talking about this, Ye Mingsheng also said helplessly:
"Mom, I already have eight children!"

"Mingsheng, you are the emperor now. Eighty is not too many!"

Hearing such a terrifying number as eighty, Ye Mingsheng couldn't help but smile bitterly. At this time, Ye Cui continued to persuade Ye Mingsheng about the benefits of having more children.

Although Ye Mingsheng disagreed with Ye Cui's opinion, seeing Ye Cui's earnest look, Ye Mingsheng could not bear to refute her. He just listened with one ear and agreed with the other.

Although for political purposes, Ye Mingsheng planned to start a talent show and marry some girls with good backgrounds to enrich his harem, but Ye Mingsheng still believed that the number of people in his harem was already large enough, and it was already very difficult for him to deal with the dozen or so people now.

I'm afraid that if there are more, we will be willing but unable to do so, and we will have to give up the fight!

After having lunch with Ye Cui, Ye Mingsheng returned to his work again. Ye Mingsheng wanted to read some memorials from the Ministry of Revenue. Although Cui Shao had never expressed it, from some memorials submitted by the Ministry of Revenue, Ye Mingsheng felt that Cui Shao seemed to have no ambition now, and his work in the Ministry of Revenue seemed to be in a perfunctory manner.

Ye Mingsheng also understood this. Cui Shao might be resentful that he did not appoint him as the Prime Minister of the Cabinet. Just now when they were having dinner, his mother Ye Cui seemed to hint at him intentionally, but she also knew that this matter was very sensitive, so she didn't say it in the end...
(End of this chapter)