The Prince of Liaoyang is promoted to the position of the leader, and his duties remain the same."

After reading it all at once, Senior Official Lan acted as if nothing had happened, and simply bowed his hands: "The emperor has issued an oral order, and you are all in the secret cabinet to hear it. There is no need to be polite... In all matters, the facts should be discussed first."

After saying this, the senior guard retreated to a corner, found a cup of tea, moistened his throat, and then left.

Of course, Emperor Zhao said that no empty gifts were allowed, but how could it not be empty in reality?

Therefore, Prime Minister Zhao Ding and other ministers, chancellors, vice ministers, nine officials and five supervisors came out one after another, saluted towards the void in the north and took turns to recite congratulations.

After a lot of trouble, the second floor of the secret pavilion gradually calmed down.

But the so-called calmness does not mean having nothing to say or nothing to discuss. On the contrary, there is so much to say and so much to discuss that I don’t know where to start.

You must know that today is different from the previous days. Four days ago, only the briefing of the victory in Hulu arrived by flying horse. The secret cabinet only knew that Emperor Zhao would not exaggerate and that it was indeed a decisive battle, so they had been noisy for the whole afternoon and discussed various plans. But today, the victory news came in waves, and the details of the battlefield were listed one by one, including beheadings, prisoners, and spoils, as well as post-war treatment and rewards. The amount of information was astonishing, how could the secret cabinet sit empty-handed?

"Let me say one thing... Eighteen princes in one go, isn't this reward a bit too excessive?" After a period of silence, the one who broke the silence was the Minister of Justice Ma Shen.

"The Ministry of Justice is worrying too much!" Li Guang, the Chief Censor, immediately stepped out of the crowd and spoke first. "This time the reward is unusual... First, it is a definite victory, almost preventing the Jin army from returning north, and then the restoration of the country is just around the corner. Not to mention seven princes and eleven county princes, even if it is seventeen or twenty-one, the title will be conferred; second, the Ministry of Justice has not heard the previous decree that this is a promise made by the emperor before the battle... In the past, King Cheng conferred the title to Tang and Duke Zhou congratulated him. I dare to ask, can the emperor break his promise to confer a title?"

Ma Shen was speechless and even caught off guard, because Li Guang's objection was too quick and too direct.

"That's right. Not only should we not go back on our word, but we should also do it sooner rather than later, and more generous rather than narrow." As soon as Li Guang finished speaking, someone hurriedly echoed him.

"If you ask me, the Ministry of Justice is really worrying too much." Then, even the Prime Minister Chen Gui couldn't help but laugh. "What's eighteen princes? When the country was prosperous and prosperous, there were dozens of princes alone. Now all of them are vacant. The two rivers have been completely recovered. Does the court need this little salary? Besides, this kind of title can be confirmed not to be a real title. It's nothing more than the government's unprecedented business and unprecedented achievements. This is just used as a meritorious service to be recorded in history books in the future."

Ma Shen was slightly startled, then suddenly came to his senses and kept silent.

Let’s talk about what kind of person Ma Shen is. His awakening was not something that was convinced by the words of these two people.

In fact, although he was dissatisfied with too many titles of king, especially the two close ministers after Yelu Yudu because of their "consistency" and "ten years of following", he felt a little awkward, and even vaguely felt that Jie Yuan and Liu Qi were able to be crowned kings because the government selfishly added them to make Yang Yi Zhong and Liu Yan crowned kings to shut people up... However, dissatisfaction did not mean that he would really care about the title itself.

What is the title of a prince? In the Song Dynasty, as long as nothing went wrong, the princes would be given the title of a prince after retirement. If they did a good job, they could easily be crowned the king of a great country... But Lu Haowen's family was simply the Prince of Donglai County, which was inherited from the family. Compared with such a good thing, the title of a prince seemed a bit superfluous.

Therefore, even if he was going to talk about Yang Yizhong and Liu Yan, it was just an introduction. In the final analysis, it was just that Emperor Zhao had appointed so many military generals as kings in one go, and Ma Shen was a little worried that the balance between civil and military affairs would be disrupted.

But didn’t Li Guang and Chen Gui just jump out and make it clear?

What Emperor Zhao has accomplished in the past ten years is now on a par with that of Emperor Guangwu. If he can continue to work hard for another thirty years without any problems, he might even be able to compete with the Qin Emperor and Emperor Taizong of Tang.

Then Guangwu had twenty-eight meritorious officials in Yuntai, Emperor Tang had twenty-four meritorious officials in Lingyan Pavilion... Emperor Zhao only had eighteen kings who were military generals to restore the country?

What is the title of king? The title of king is just an evaluation system that represents your merits and ranking.

Therefore, if there are eighteen military generals, there must be eighteen civil officials!

Most of them are civil officials and military officials, and it would be comfortable to have thirty-six in total. The military officials were promised before the war, and they will be conferred titles first. After Yanyun is defeated, or the war is over, it will naturally be time to discuss the eighteen civil officials… If you complain that eighteen kingships are too many, isn’t it equivalent to complaining that the merits of eighteen civil officials are too many?

Indeed, if we remove Liu Qi, Jie Yuan, Yang Yi Zhong and Liu Yan, the number of fourteen versus twenty-eight heroes seems more appropriate.

But if that is the case, how many of you here have any idea about it?

Since the Jianyan period, there have been many famous officials. After the departure of Li Gang, Zong Ze, Wang Boyan, Lu Haowen, Xu Jingheng, Zhao Ding, Zhang Jun, Yuwen Xuzhong and Lu Yihao, how many positions are left?

Chen Gui and Liu Ji are both insecure. Hu Yin seems to be more reliable, but what about Liu Ziyu and Lin Jingmo? What about Li Guang and you, Ma Shen? Are there Wang Shu and Hu Hongxiu outside? Even Zhang Suo, who died for his country, is not sure... Who can be sure?

However, whether you enter this or not can almost directly determine your reputation after death, which is really a scam.

Therefore, don't complain that eighteen kings are too many. According to the thoughts of some people in the secret room who were sweating after calculating in their minds, Wang Sheng, Wu Lin, Wang Gui, and Fu Xuan can make do, and Guo Hao and Shao Yun can also be used.

It would be best to create something like the Forty-eight Heroes of Yuetai, so that you can have some influence on it.

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