Han Shizu

Chapter 2164: Sejong 40: The Death of the Later King, Ten Years of the Empire
In the eighth year of Jianlong, Liu Wenji, as emperor, had his constraints further weakened. In addition to further controlling court officials and political affairs, he was able to handle them with ease, also because the older generation of dignitaries passed away one after another.

Of course, there were only a few people who could have a significant impact on Liu Wenji or even a deterrent. Empress Dowager Murong died in the late winter of the sixth year of Jianlong. The old lady endured three more years of loneliness and helplessness in Ciming Palace before she died.

The death of Empress Dowager Murong also meant that the threat Liu Wenji faced within the palace was further eliminated, and he was relieved of a big worry. However, this connotation could not be expressed. After all, she was the original wife of Emperor Taizong. The aura of orthodoxy and legality could not be erased. On the contrary, it needed to be maintained at all times. This was consistent with the legality of Liu Wenji's succession.

Therefore, when the empress died, Liu Wenji hurriedly set off and returned from Taiyuan to the south to take care of the funeral of the empress dowager Murong, although it was just a gesture. In comparison, Empress Xiao was much more deeply saddened by the death of the empress dowager Murong.

To be fair, Empress Dowager Murong was distant, wary, and rejected Empress Dowager Xiao and her son. Even after Liu Wenji ascended the throne, he adopted many crude and stupid political tactics, but from beginning to end, he never really used any conspiracy to persecute them.

Therefore, Liu Wenji's defense and suppression of Empress Dowager Murong was only based on political security, while Empress Dowager Xiao always maintained respect and concern for Empress Dowager Murong. However, whether this concern contained a layer of surveillance and defense is another matter.

The funeral of Queen Mother Murong was still held in the form of a state funeral, which was very grand. Liu Wenji also tried his best not to give people a chance to criticize him. At the same time, due to the death of the Queen Mother, he completely gave up the idea of ​​mobilizing troops to deal with the situation in Andong. If it is not necessary, filial piety should still be taken seriously, which is an important means of governing the world.

On the other hand, after the death of Empress Dowager Murong, Empress Dowager Xiao naturally rose to a higher level and became the only legitimate empress dowager of the Han Empire. Liu Wenji originally planned to let Empress Dowager Xiao enter the Ciming Palace. After decades of expansion and decoration, the Ciming Palace is a very large and livable palace complex in Ziwei City. Liu Wenji obviously used this to express his love and reward for his mother.

However, this was also rejected by Empress Dowager Xiao, who bluntly said that she was living well in Yuehua Palace and was content with her position and calm. Behind this humble statement was a reminder to Liu Wenji: Don't be too arrogant.
Less than two years after the death of Empress Dowager Murong, in the autumn of the eighth year of Jianlong, another pillar of the Han Empire, Liu Fang, the Prince of Zhao and the Prince's Tutor, who could be called the "last elder" of the Shizu Dynasty and the head of the royal family in the Jianlong era, also passed away.

There is no need to say much about King Zhao Liu Fang. His background, resume, and achievements have long been engraved in the annals, classics, and legends of countless empires. He was a star that still shone with the glory of the old era until the Jianlong era. However, this star eventually fell after the Mid-Autumn Festival and returned to silence.

The death of Liu Fang was a relief for Emperor Liu Wenji, as if a layer of shackles surrounding him had been opened. From then on, he was the only authority in the empire!

It is not surprising that the person who was most sad and helpless about Liu Fang's death was not anyone else, but Crown Prince Liu Jili. Liu Fang and Liu Jili had both the friendship of a clan leader and the distinction of master and apprentice, and they developed a deep relationship over the eight years.

More importantly, in the Han court in the eighth year of Jianlong, King Zhao Liu Fang was still Liu Jili's most solid political support. Now, this support was also destroyed by fate. How could the mature Liu Jili not feel grief and anxiety?

In the current Han Dynasty, the situation of Crown Prince Liu Jili is actually somewhat embarrassing. The early death of Queen Li is the most critical factor. Although Liu Jili's status as crown prince was established early on, the actual political environment makes his position as crown prince not so stable.

There was an Empress Yang in the central palace, and as early as the second year of Duangong (1016), when Empress Li was still alive, she had given birth to a young son, Liu Jiying, for Liu Wenji. As the son grew up, it was almost inevitable that he would have an impact on Liu Jili's status.

Both of them were legitimate sons. There was a queen in her prime and the Yang family was prominent. Although Liu Jili had the status of the eldest legitimate son and had accumulated a lot of reputation over the years, it could not cover up his lack of strength.

As for the maternal family, the Li family, which was passed down from Li Wanchao, the Marquis of Jiuyuan, was just an ordinary family among the many powerful people in the empire. It had improved in recent years because of the help of Queen Li, and some of their children were able to hold important positions. However, the help these people could provide to Liu Jili was obviously not enough.

Therefore, the supporters gathered around Liu Jili, apart from the officials of the Eastern Palace and the Li family, were only some conservative bureaucrats who insisted on the orthodoxy of primogeniture. The quality of this group of people was perhaps even inferior to the supporters in the court when Emperor Kangzong was the crown prince.

After all, justice and orthodoxy also need sufficient strength to support. As the Prince's tutor, Liu Fang has also been a banner for supporters of the Eastern Palace in the past few years. The fall of this banner has a much more serious impact on Liu Jili than what appears on the surface.

Of course, the matter of the crown prince ultimately depends on the emperor's decision. The current emperor Liu Wenji obviously has the final say in this regard. If we talk about Liu Wenji's attitude on this matter, at least in the eighth year of Jianlong, he definitely did not do whatever he wanted.

Liu Wenji obviously had special feelings for his eldest son, who was humble, dignified, and filial to himself. At the same time, he also had high hopes for Liu Jili. This can be seen from the configuration of the Eastern Palace. All the personnel arrangements were very practical. They were either descendants of nobles or outstanding people of the time, and were assisted by experienced and capable people. Letting Liu Fang be his tutor was the most powerful interpretation of Liu Wenji's hopes.

Even in the eighth year of Jianlong, from the perspective of an emperor's identity and political strategy, Liu Wenji would firmly maintain the status of the prince. For the sake of the country and the throne, this is the mission of an emperor, and Liu Wenji also has a sense of responsibility in this regard.

On the other hand, the Yang family was already the most prominent foreign relative of the dynasty. The reason why Yang was made the empress was to attract her support and to check and balance the dissatisfied nobles. In addition to respecting and using her, it was impossible not to be on guard. The Yang family had already been given the highest honor. If her son became the crown prince, wouldn't the world belong to the Yang family?

Therefore, the weaker Prince Liu Jili is, the more stable his position is. At the same time, his status as the eldest son is an advantage that can never be overthrown. As long as he maintains this advantage, his future is promising.

Of course, the court state has a complete system and strict rules. However, under these rules and regulations, there are countless people and things that violate the law. Before a conclusion is reached, any twists and turns are possible.

With the increasing frequency of vassal exchanges between land and sea, the exchanges between the imperial court and the major vassal states have become an indispensable issue for the imperial court to govern the country. But realistically speaking, the vassal states in the north and south and the "principalities" and "marquisates" under the kingdoms are just planets surrounding the star of the central empire.

If the Central Empire wants to continue to shine, it has to rely on its own energy. The affairs of the vassal states are just minor matters to the core of the empire. The fundamental issue is always within the empire, in its political policies, and in its hundreds of millions of people.

To be honest, the focus of the imperial court, from the emperor down, was always on the thirty regions of the Han Dynasty (including the Tibetan area), hundreds of prefectures, and thousands of counties and towns. The operation of national order, the struggle for power, and the division of interests all revolved around the "traditional" Han land.

Starting from the eighth year of Jianlong, the Han Empire can basically be said to have reached its best moment and its peak state. Taking into account all aspects including politics, military, economy, people's livelihood, ideology, and system, this was its most prosperous stage.

In the ten years from the eighth year of Jianlong to the eighteenth year of Jianlong, Liu Wenji did not make any major breakthroughs in the country's governance reform. The development of the empire had entered a bottleneck period, and even with the stimulation of the closure of the country, it was still difficult to have new changes.

As for setting the tone for the empire, both big and small, Emperors Shizu and Taizong had actually done most of it. What was left for Liu Wenji was only to make some appropriate modifications and corrections within the existing framework system to maintain the healthy and orderly development of the empire.

Although this maintenance was not so grand and magnificent, it was a test of an emperor's quality and temper in terms of scale and measure. Governing a big country is like cooking a small fish, and Liu Wenji, as the successor and defender, used this method of slow cooking over low heat to gradually cook out a peak imperial dynasty.

During the ten years, Liu Wenji achieved remarkable results in many aspects of state governance. First of all, in terms of talent selection, a large number of outstanding talents were discovered and gradually stepped onto the center of the imperial political stage. These were talented people who emerged under Liu Wenji's guiding ideology of state governance, deeply imprinted with his mark, and were the backbone talents who maintained Liu Wenji's rule.

Among the commoner bureaucrats, a large number of fresh blood entered the Han officialdom, starting with the ministers such as Cai Qi, Yan Shu, and Fan Zhongyan who passed the imperial examination in the second year of Duangong, followed by a new group of rising talents such as Bao Zheng, Zeng Gongliang, and Fu Bi.

The spring of literati (ministers) that the older generation of prime ministers such as Li Hang and Lu Mengzheng had been looking forward to finally arrived. Eighty years after the establishment of the empire, the power of the common people surpassed that of the nobles for the first time.

At the local level, Liu Wenji's attempt at civil service schools also achieved initial success. Not to mention the earliest Loujiang College, after thirty years it had become the main source of civil service talent for the southeastern provinces. In addition to the main Loujiang College campus, branches were also established in various provincial capitals.

At the same time, Liu Wenji established three major schools, Northwest, Southwest and Central South, in Chang'an, Chengdu and Changsha respectively. The model was exactly the same, and he further promoted the concept of "specialized officials and specialized talents".

Although it is difficult to have accurate official statistics, the overall quality of the imperial bureaucracy during the Jianlong era was improving, while its ability to control the people and its methods of committing crimes were also constantly upgrading.

At the same time, those who can rise to high positions must be "all-rounders" or have a strong background. With the improvement of the number and quality of basic civil servants, the career path of "civil servant to official" has unknowingly opened up many links and is not as difficult as it used to be.

One of the important reasons is that the civil service school advocated and implemented by Emperor Liu Wenji could not be too pure. Nobles and commoners, all powerful groups were reaching out to exert influence, and the struggle for power and interests between the upper and lower levels simply shifted part of the battlefield.

This is also the result of a compromise. Without the participation and support of the powerful class, the so-called civil service school could not be established at all, and it would not be promoted. Even Liu Wenji himself was just a "powerful class" in his early years.

When civil service schools were flourishing across the country, the Imperial University of Politics and Law, located in the capital, was undoubtedly the leader of all schools. It produced the most political stars, including Zeng Gongliang, Bao Zheng, and Fu Bi.

As the empire's upper class became increasingly solidified, Liu Wenji's civil service school system, on the one hand, accelerated this process, and on the other hand, in fact gave the common people in the world more possibilities. The upward channel was not completely closed, even though this channel was constantly narrowing.

During this process, the commoner bureaucratic group grew stronger, the power of the academic cliques also grew stronger, and regional discrimination and party struggles inevitably rose. After a period of dormancy, a group of capable noble bureaucrats also emerged, such as Shi Yuansun (grandson of Shi Shouxin), Zhang Wenwei (grandson of Zhang Yongde), and Li Guangfu (great-grandson of Li Yun), who quickly rose to high positions based on the accumulation of their ancestors.

While the selection of civil servants became more and more lively, military academies also developed greatly under the promotion of Liu Wenji, which can be called a breakthrough. The empire's "Central Military Academy" has a long history, dating back to the Fengchen Camp during the reign of Emperor Shizu, but strict professional division was carried out during the Jianlong period. Even though it was only divided into five major categories: infantry, cavalry, baggage, engineering, and artillery, this was also a major change in the empire's military history, which was a milestone.

In addition to the two "Imperial Military Academies" located in the East and West Capitals, the affiliated military command academies in the core cities of the southeast, northwest, and northeast also started to operate simultaneously. It is worth mentioning that half of the students in these military academies came from the imperial army, and the remaining half were recruited from the society in name, but the vast majority of them were taken by military nobles and sons of generals. If Liu Wenji had not drawn a "10%" red line, it would be difficult for ordinary people who wanted to join the army to realize their ambitions of getting ahead through military academies, let alone rising in class.

Compared with the civil service system, the military system is always completely different. Its closedness, tradition and conservatism are extremely stubborn. In peacetime, it is a place where qualifications and background are required, and ability is only a foundation.

Of course, to a certain extent, this also ensured the stability of the imperial army and facilitated the control of the court, although it shared power with the nobles. But even so, there were still a group of commoner generals who rose to prominence in the army during these ten years, such as Zhong Shiheng and Di Qing. Especially the latter, he completely rose from a grass-like soldier to a general step by step, and was heard by the emperor and entered the Golden Hall.

In addition to the selection and appointment of talents, Liu Wenji focused his greatest energy on finance and taxation, which he achieved through salt reform and land consolidation. Both of these things were difficult to do, especially the latter. Liu Wenji spent a full ten years to sort out the results and see initial results.

(End of this chapter)