In the Song Dynasty, there was no law. Chapter 289 of the main text: Work Report of the Political System Council and New Plans. While the three were talking, Prime Ministers Fan Zhongyan, Song Shou, Cai Qi, Jiang Tang, Zhang Shixun, Jia Changchao and others came in.

The weather has been cold recently, and Wang Zeng and Lu Yijian are both sick and recuperating at home.

Shengdu died of illness again.

The Constitutional Council suddenly became much quieter with three people missing.

The door opened and the cold wind blew in from outside.

When Old Fan came in and saw Zhao Jun, he was stunned for a moment and said, "Hanlong, didn't you go back to rest after the morning court?"

The morning court starts at four o'clock, but now it is mainly for various departments to report their work. Unlike before, there are often quarrels in the vegetable market, so the efficiency is much higher and it usually ends at five or six o'clock.

Everyone in the Constitutional Council came to work at the end of the Chenshi period, which was around nine o'clock in the morning, giving the prime ministers about three or four hours of rest time.

Usually everyone goes back to take a nap at this time, and even Zhao Jun was no exception in the past. I didn’t expect it to be so early today.

"I've been a bit slack at work since the New Year. From now on, I won't go back to rest during the morning court session."

Zhao Jun unconsciously touched his right temple. Since he started traveling around the world in the fourth year of Jingyou, he has had white hair. Due to his increasing work, the number of white hairs has decreased in the past two years, but it has grown a lot again this year.

Even when he was lying in Cao Miaoxin's arms, his wife would sigh, help him pull out the white hair one by one, and advise him to rest more and stay up late less.

After all, he is already 31 years old this year.

"You should get more rest."

Fan Zhongyan said.

"Forget it. Now Lao Lu and Lao Wang are resting at home. We have so many national affairs to deal with. We can't slack off."

Zhao Jun stood up from his seat and said, "Now that everyone is here, let's start the meeting."

Daily routine meetings.

Everyone tightened their clothes, closed the door of the Constitutional Court, and followed Zhao Jun to the meeting room at the back.

In the conference room, the servant made tea for each prime minister, then went out and closed the door tightly. The room was silent.

Unlike meetings in later government offices which were often filled with smoke, there was no tobacco at this time. Everyone held their teacups in their hands and took a sip to warm themselves.

"Let me first give you a regular report on the domestic situation."

Zhao Jun spoke first.

He turned his head and looked at Fan Zhongyan.

Except for Zhao Jun himself who was in charge of all departments, the other prime ministers basically had their own departments of focus, which were their areas of responsibility.

For example, when the Minister of Finance was Cheng Lin, the Minister of War was Zhang Dexiang, and the Chief Censor was Fan Feng, Lü Yijian was in charge of the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of War, and the Censorate.

As compensation, the Ministry of Personnel, the Ministry of Rites and the Censorate were then under the control of Wang Zeng, which was considered to be a rival to Lu Yijian.

Now the Minister of Finance has become Xia Song, and the Minister of War and the Chief Censor have also been replaced long ago, so the departments in charge of each prime minister have also changed.

For example, Fan Zhongyan is now in charge of the Ministry of War and is in charge of the overall military reform.

Seeing him looking at him, Old Fan said, "Fu Bi also briefly mentioned it at the court meeting this morning, so I will talk about it in detail here."

"The military restructuring is now basically complete. Over 200,000 old and weak soldiers have been eliminated from the army, and over 30,000 more have been recruited, bringing the size of the Imperial Guard to 423,000."

"The number of Imperial Guards has been reduced from 2,369 to 1,143. Of these, 306 are divided among the five routes of Shaanxi, 423 are divided among the five routes of Hebei, and 423 are divided among the five routes of Bianliang."

"In addition, the Xiang army originally had over 400,000 soldiers, but the actual registered number is about 300,000. About 110,000 were laid off, and 20,000 new recruits were recruited, including landless refugees from all over the country, young beggars, and minor criminals. They were temporarily incorporated into the Xiang army, totaling 218,000 people."

"Including the garrison troops, the Song Dynasty's original registered force of 1.259 million is now reduced to only 641,000. The actual reduction is approximately 330,000. The unpaid salaries are approximately 350,000. We have now fully investigated them."

"According to reports from the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Statistics, our military expenditures in the first half of last year were still 29.75 million guan (approximately 10,000 guan), which included the cost of manufacturing cannons, muskets, and grenades. But by the second half of the year, our expenditures had shrunk to 14.19 million guan (approximately 10,000 guan)."

"This is even after Hanlong has raised the salaries of the Xiang army to the same level as the lower-ranking imperial guards. It is foreseeable that starting next year, the Song Dynasty's military expenditure will drop from the original 50 to 60 million strings of cash per year to a maximum of 30 million strings of cash per year."

At the end, Fan Zhongyan said with a look of joy: "This is a great improvement for the redundant troops."

The number of soldiers registered at the beginning of the Song Dynasty was 1.29 million. According to the investigation by the envoys sent by the Ministry of War and the final total number reported, the actual number of people was only about 900,000.

Among them, there are about 300,000 garrison troops and about 600,000 imperial guards. And at least one-third of them are old, weak, sick and disabled.

This means that the number of people whose salaries were being taken without working reached 350,000 to 360,000, and nearly 400,000 people were only listed on the military rolls, but in reality they were not there. They either fled, died, or disappeared without a trace.

Every year, the Song Dynasty would spend about 7 to 9 million strings of cash in salaries on these 350,000 to 360,000 people, and all of it ended up in the pockets of military generals or nobles.

In addition, the court also had to pay more than 10 million strings of cash every year for the army's daily losses, including weapons and equipment, food utensils, war horses and supplies.

Even if only one-third or even half of it was embezzled, resold or destroyed, millions of strings of cash would be lost every year.

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