"Then we would have six generals, more than thirty lieutenant generals, and more than a hundred major generals. Isn't that a bit too much?"
Fu Bi said with some concern.
"Not many at all. In the early days of our new era, there were ten founding marshals, ten founding generals, fifty-seven founding generals, one hundred and seventy-seven founding lieutenant generals, and an even more exaggerated number of one thousand three hundred and sixty founding major generals."
“How many soldiers did you have at that time?”
"Forehead"
Zhao Jun thought for a moment and said, "It seems to be more than five million."
All the prime ministers present, including Fan Zhongyan and others, were speechless.
My goodness, more than five million people, that means more than a thousand generals, right?
How many people are there in the Song Dynasty?
After so many years of military reform, the army has only 600,000 soldiers and the navy has only 35,000 soldiers.
"That was actually the case in ancient times. It was normal for any founding dynasty to have more than a hundred founding heroes."
Zhao Jun knew what they were thinking and said, "Now that the Song Dynasty has so much more land, we can just treat it as a new founding of the country."
"All right."
Fu Bi's expression was still somewhat grim as he said, "Wang Deyong is still okay, after all, he has real military achievements. Cao Cong, Li Yonghe, and Li Zhaoliang are all good."
"Hmm."
Zhao Jun was also a little troubled.
At the beginning of this year, he and Fan Zhongyan implemented a new policy, intending to formally begin to improve the status of soldiers.
At that time, the military and politics will be separated, with one system for the military and another for officials.
Among them, military rank is very important and represents the level of the soldier.
Since lieutenant, colonel and general have been the classification of military generals in ancient my country since ancient times, and this system has been used in later generations as well, so this system has been adopted.
Just like later generations, there were second lieutenant, first lieutenant, captain, major, lieutenant colonel, colonel, major general, lieutenant general, and general. These corresponded to the nine ranks of officials, but there was no distinction between the eighteen ranks.
Many prime ministers in the Constitutional Court had no objection to raising the status of military generals. Zhao Jun had already made it clear to them that the army was the cornerstone of the country. If the Song Dynasty wanted to maintain long-term stability, it could not suppress the army excessively.
Therefore, it is only natural to reform the army and enhance its status.
The grand ceremony of awarding titles will be held at the beginning of next year. At that time, Zhao Zhen will personally award titles and medals to the generals and give them the newly designed imperial medals as the highest honor.
As a result, the joint selection department, led by the Ministry of War and assisted by the Privy Council and the Three Yamen, submitted the list of titles. Zhao Jun's blood pressure rose a little when he saw it.
Not a single lieutenant general.
Forget about Fan Zhongyan. Although he played a decisive role in the Song-Xia War and the Song-Liao War, as a prime minister, he naturally could not participate in the selection.
Zhang Kang, an important figure who had made many military achievements in the Song-Xia War and the Song-Liao War, led his troops to win key battles many times, and had been promoted to the Privy Councilor, was actually only a major general.
The same goes for Di Qing. As the main general who first destroyed the Vietnamese Li Dynasty and then destroyed the Western Xia, Gaochang, Black Khan and other countries, he is now the Deputy Privy Councilor and is also a Major General.
Although Di Qing mainly served as a general under Fan Zhongyan and Zhang Kang in his early years.
But later, as the Western Xia and Liao were defeated, Fan Zhongyan and Zhang Kang had too high status, and if they destroyed another country, they would have no more titles to be given, so they gave up the credit.
Among them were a large number of senior generals such as Di Qing, Ge Huaimin, Ren Fu, Liu Ping, Zhao Zhen, Gao Jixuan, Shi Yuansun, and Xu Huaide, all of whom made great contributions in these wars.
Moreover, except for Di Qing who climbed up from the lower military ranks, the others were high-ranking generals of the Song Dynasty. In history, they were generals and deputy generals of various armies in the Song-Xia War.
Being able to stand out among such a group of senior generals is a testament to Di Qing's ability. In fact, in terms of military achievements, he has surpassed Zhang Kang and is not inferior to Fan Zhongyan.
In the end, he was only a major general, which made Zhao Jun laugh.
However, Zhao Jun also knew what the situation was with the people in the Ministry of War and the Privy Council.
After Fu Bi was promoted to prime minister, Gao Ruone took over as the Minister of War. Except for Di Qing, all the members of the Privy Council, including Zhang Kang, the Privy Councilor, were Jinshi graduates.
So this is not necessarily the civil service group rebelling against the orders of the Constitutional Yuan, but it is very likely that they think this is the way it should be arranged.
Even though they vaguely guessed that the Constitutional Council was trying to change the current awkward situation of the military generals' status, they still chose to do so.
It has nothing to do with interests, it is purely because they instinctively do not want to improve the status of military generals. This is something that is ingrained in their bones.
"Of course, the Constitutional Yuan can't just shout about raising the status of military commanders. So, we can only steadily improve it through policies and regulations. This kind of reform is the best way."
Zhao Jun pondered and said, "If we raise their status, I think the officials below will also understand the intentions of the Constitutional Council. As for Li Yong and the others' words."
He thought for a moment and said, "I'll report this to His Majesty this afternoon. Li Yonghe and Li Zhaoliang, who had military achievements before Cao Cong, are His Majesty's men after all."
"Well, that's all we can do. Let His Majesty decide."
Fu Bi responded.
In the past few years, the chief officials of the three yamen were Cao Cong, Li Yonghe and Gao Hua. Later, Gao Hua died of illness, and they were first replaced by Wang Deyong and then by Li Zhaoliang.
Later generations believed that the Privy Council in the Song Dynasty was the highest military institution.
But in fact, the Privy Council was just an institution for mobilizing the army, similar to a certain committee in later generations.
The real military chief, or the nominal military chief, is actually the three commanders of the three yamen, commonly known as the Palace Marshal, the Cavalry Marshal and the Infantry Marshal.
Among them, the cavalry commander Cao Cong was the uncle of Zhao Zhen’s wife, the infantry commander Li Yonghe was Zhao Zhen’s uncle, and the palace commander Li Zhaoliang was also a relative by marriage.
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