Chapter 1360 Staff Meeting!

Yi Jing, General Staff
After Ye Mingsheng proclaimed himself emperor and changed the country's name from Da Zhou to Da Qian, although there were no major changes in the locations of various government offices, each government office still received a sum of silver to be used for the renovation of existing government offices. The General Staff, as one of the most important departments of the Da Qian court, also received 5,000 taels of silver for renovation fees.

Under the instruction of Chief of Staff Zhao Han, the General Staff used the five thousand taels of silver to renovate the entire General Staff Headquarters. During the renovation process, Zhao Han specially built a strategic meeting room.

The reason why Zhao Han wanted to build this strategic meeting room was also because of Ye Mingsheng's preference.

When Ye Mingsheng convened some high-level meetings, he liked to hold them at his own home. The most famous of these was the Zhongyong Hall Meeting. Many important military affairs of the Fengwu Army were decided at meetings. In addition, many meetings involving people's livelihood were also decided by Ye Mingsheng at his own home!

But when it came to military issues, Ye Mingsheng liked to come to the General Staff Headquarters and convene a meeting of all the staff officers, allowing them to brainstorm and speak freely at the meeting, so that they could work together for the great cause of the Fengwu Army.

The General Staff originally had a conference room, which was not small, with an area of ​​less than half an acre. However, there were nearly a hundred staff members at all levels in the General Staff.

So whenever a war breaks out, when Ye Mingsheng summons all the staff officers to a meeting in the conference room, the entire conference room can accommodate everyone but it seems very crowded...
It's okay in the winter, but in the summer when the weather is hot and humid and hundreds of people are crowded in this conference room, the situation will become very bad. Many people in the staff department have some complaints about this and hope that the conference room can be expanded.

When He Jingyun was the chief of staff, he wanted to solve this problem. He knew that Ye Mingsheng had a special liking for convening all staff meetings, and that such staff meetings were more effective. Many tactics of the Fengwu Army were proposed by the second and third class staff at the staff meeting.

Since the number of participants cannot be reduced, the only option is to expand the area of ​​the conference room. However, the layout of the General Staff Office is very compact. If the old conference room is demolished and a new one is built, it may cause a chain reaction and make the expenditure very high.

At that time, He Jingyun asked the First Manufacturing Bureau to calculate the cost of building a new conference room, and the First Manufacturing Bureau quoted a price of five thousand taels of silver!
Although the First Manufacturing Bureau repeatedly stated that if they wanted to demolish the old conference room in the General Staff Office and build a new one, they would inevitably have to readjust the overall layout of the General Staff Office, the five thousand taels of silver was just a cost price, and their First Manufacturing Bureau did not make a single tael of silver from it.

However, after weighing the pros and cons, He Jingyun, the chief of staff, gave up the idea of ​​building a new conference room. After all, although the old conference room was a bit small and the user experience was not very good, it could still be used.
In addition, in order to support the war, all government offices were gritting their teeth to support the frontline battle of Fengwu Army. Under such background, it could be said that it was a very extravagant act for the General Staff to spend 5,000 taels of silver to build a new conference room, which was easy to be criticized behind the back...

So taking these factors into consideration, He Jingyun, the then Chief of Staff, finally gave up the plan to build a new conference room, and the new conference room was not built until he left the General Staff.

Many years later, in private chats with some old friends, He Jingyun also regarded this incident as one of the few regrets during his tenure as Chief of Staff. He could never forget the time when everyone was crowded together in the conference room and sweating profusely.

Zhao Han, who took over the position of Chief of Staff of He Jingyun, was also obsessed with the plan of building a new conference room. As the army's steward over the years, his daily work was mostly to handle official business in the yamen's classroom, and he also had many social engagements in his spare time, so his figure was getting fatter and fatter.

Fat people love to sweat, so whenever Ye Mingsheng held a staff meeting in the conference room, as the chief of staff he would often wipe his sweat, making himself very embarrassed and a little awkward.

When he first took over as chief of staff, Zhao Han wanted to build a new spacious and bright conference room, but he gave up the idea in the face of the high project quotation.

So when Ye Mingsheng proclaimed himself emperor and the higher authorities approved five thousand taels of silver for renovation expenses, Zhao Han immediately asked the First Manufacturing Bureau to build this new strategic meeting room.

Although this strategic conference room is still called a conference room in name, it actually occupies two and a half acres, which is five times larger than the original conference room. It can even be called a small palace. In order to build this strategic conference room, it cost three thousand taels of silver...
After Ye Mingsheng heard about this, he initially thought that what Zhao Han did was indeed a bit extravagant, but then he thought that this old conference room really could not be used. As the Fengwu Army unified the country, there were more and more staff officers in the General Staff. When summer came, this room became stuffy and there was no wind at all.

He is now middle-aged, and his figure is not as good as when he was young. He has also gained a lot of weight. It will not look good if he sweats profusely in the meeting room. So Ye Mingsheng finally acquiesced to what Zhao Han did.

At this moment, it was in the newly built spacious and bright strategic conference room of the General Staff.

Ye Mingsheng, Chief of Staff Zhao Han, Deputy Chief of Staff Ma Zhongjun and hundreds of other staff officers sat in order, while First Officer of the General Staff Luo Gang stood on the podium, introducing to everyone the various recent situations in the army.

"In the past three months, the various armies and divisions have sent a total of 13,000 excellent veterans to the local areas. For this, the General Staff paid a one-time subsidy of 90,000 taels of silver, but saved at least 130,000 taels of silver in annual salaries!"

"Among these 13,000 veterans, about 5,000 have been transferred to local areas to serve as police chiefs, constables, and runners. For this, our General Staff is very grateful to the provincial governments, prefectural governments, and county governments for their support and help in our work!"

“The remaining 8,000 people basically went home with the subsidies to farm, work, or do some small business. At the request of Your Majesty, our staff also provided them with courses in blacksmithing, cooking, and agriculture to ensure that they have a skill and can have a good life after leaving the army…”

Hearing this, Ye Mingsheng nodded secretly. Since ancient times, dynasties have been built on mountains of corpses and seas of blood, and his Daqian Dynasty is no exception.

These 13,000 outstanding veterans who were sent to the local areas can be said to have made outstanding contributions to the birth of the Daqian Dynasty. Ye Mingsheng thanked them from the bottom of his heart for their contributions and support to the Daqian Dynasty. Therefore, although Ye Mingsheng had to lay them off due to the difficulties in the actual situation, Ye Mingsheng sincerely hoped that they would have a better life in the future.

This was also the original intention of Ye Mingsheng to ask the General Staff to provide skills training for these outstanding veterans. At present in the Daqian Dynasty, having a skill and mastering a technology is very popular. Even if you cannot become rich, it will be no problem to support your family.

At this time, Luo Gang continued to introduce:

"After sending off these excellent veterans, the General Staff recruited about 20,000 new soldiers in Guanzhong, Jingchu and other places. After training, they were added to the various armies and divisions!" "A considerable number of these 20,000 people are soldiers from the original Jingchu Army, Zhennan Army, and Imperial Army. They have experienced some baptisms of war and their military qualities are pretty good. Therefore, our army's combat effectiveness has not been greatly affected!"

Ye Mingsheng looked at Luo Gang who was talking freely, and asked in a deep voice:
"What's going on with the First Army?"

Facing Ye Mingsheng's question, Luo Gang immediately replied:

“Your Majesty, the First Army has sent us news. With the help of the Coordination Office, they have completed military reconnaissance on some native ethnic groups in Yunqian, Baiyue and other regions. Now they can start operations at any time to completely integrate these places into the territory of Daqian…”

Ye Mingsheng nodded slightly when he heard this.

In the last six years of the Great Zhou Dynasty, due to the decline of the dynasty, the control of the Great Zhou over the borders became increasingly weak, which led to the growth of the chieftains in Baiyue, Yunqian and other places. On the surface, these people obeyed the rule of the court, but in fact they were all kings.

For the sake of his own South Seas strategy, Ye Mingsheng had long ago made up his mind to actually control these areas and then conquer the entire Indochina Peninsula, thereby prompting Daqian to move overseas and into the deep blue.

So when Ye Mingsheng was on his southern tour before, when he met Zhang Meng in Jiangnan, he also expressed to Zhang Meng some of his expectations for him and the First Army.

Ye Mingsheng was looking forward to Zhang Meng, this powerful general, being able to expand the territory for Daqian, make great achievements, and demonstrate Daqian's great military prowess in Baiyue Yunqian.

Now it seems that Zhang Meng has taken his words to heart and has made military preparations for more than half a year. Ye Mingsheng is very pleased to realize this!
However, just as Ye Mingsheng was about to give the order to Zhang Meng to start military action, a voice suddenly rang out in the conference room.

"Your Majesty, I have some different opinions on the First Army's military operations in Baiyue, Yunqian and other places!"

The appearance of this voice immediately attracted the attention of everyone in the conference room. Looking in the direction of the voice, they saw that the person who spoke was Feng Cheng, another first-class staff officer in the General Staff.

Although Ye Mingsheng didn't know what different opinions Feng Cheng had, the purpose of convening this staff meeting was to allow everyone to speak freely and express their opinions without any scruples...
So at this moment, under Feng Cheng's pleading gaze, Ye Mingsheng nodded and indicated to Feng Cheng that it was okay to say it.

After receiving Ye Mingsheng's instructions, Feng Cheng continued:
"Your Majesty and colleagues, in the past six months, the First Army has sent intelligence on Yunqian, Baiyue and other places to the General Staff three times. The total amount of intelligence is 105 pages!"

"This contains information about the deployment of the troops of Yunqian and Baiyue Tusi. There are seventy-two pages in total, and the remaining thirty-three pages are the geographical information of Yunqian and Baiyue!"

Having said this, Feng Cheng once again looked at Ye Mingsheng who was sitting in the main seat, and then spoke very solemnly:

"Based on this, I think Commander Zhang has focused his intelligence work on the situation of the Tusi's troops, rather than on the geography and customs of southern Xinjiang!"

"In some reports submitted by the First Army to the General Staff, Commander Zhang was very confident that the soldiers under the chieftains were vulnerable in the face of the First Army's artillery and muskets, and could not stop the First Army's offensive at all!"

"Zhang Meng is a veteran general of our Daqian and has made great contributions to our Daqian. Therefore, I am willing to trust General Zhang's judgment!"

"But I want to remind General Zhang that Daqian has completely taken control of Yunqian. The biggest enemy of Baiyue is not the soldiers of the chieftains, but the dense miasma, the humid and rainy weather, and the various geographical problems in southern Xinjiang!"

“Although the First Army is the trump card of our Fengwu Army and has made great achievements in unifying the world for our Daqian, most of the soldiers of the First Army are from the north. I am willing to believe in the bravery, fearlessness and hard-working fighting spirit of the soldiers of the First Army, but some objective problems do exist…”

After Feng Cheng finished speaking, everyone in the conference room began to whisper and communicate with each other. After giving everyone some time to discuss, Ye Mingsheng also asked:

"So Feng Cheng, what do you think?"

Feng Cheng said without hesitation:
"My idea is very simple. Based on the intelligence sent by the First Army to the General Staff, I believe that Governor Zhang and the First Army have not made all the battle preparations as they said. They do not have enough understanding and knowledge of the miasma, weather, and geography of Yunqian and Baiyue!"

"So I think now is not the best time to send troops to Yunqian and Baiyue. Daqian was just established not long ago, and Commander Zhang led the First Army to attack Yunqian and Baiyue. This is the first war after Daqian was established, so we must win a great victory with a thunderous and powerful force!"

At the end, Feng Cheng looked a little hesitant, as if he wanted to say something else, but after some thought he did not say it.

Although he didn't say it out loud, Ye Mingsheng knew exactly what he wanted to say next by looking at his hesitant expression!
It's nothing more than that Daqian was just established not long ago, and Your Majesty is promoting reforms. At such a critical time point, if the First Army wins, it will be able to boost national morale and inspire people, but otherwise it will inevitably cause some problems, resulting in instability in the court and setbacks to the reform cause...