Chapter 1355: Change

The Bureau of Military Affairs was positioned as the Sui Dynasty's highest military institution, equal in rank to the Three Departments, directly under the Emperor's jurisdiction and accountable only to Him, effectively creating a separation between military and civil administration.

Its offices were naturally located within the Imperial City, with a large courtyard dedicated solely to the Bureau of Military Affairs to facilitate timely reporting of military matters to the Emperor.

Yang Guang had only appointed high-ranking officials for the Bureau, such as the Grand Marshal, Vice Marshal, the Generals of the Sixteen Guards, and a host of other dispatched Generals, but he had not established the subordinate departments below them nor defined the responsibilities of each General.

The meaning was simple: with so many people holding power, Wang Yan was to figure out the arrangements himself, though he would certainly have to report the details and explain his reasoning to Yang Guang afterward.

On the second day after the Grand Court Assembly, Wang Yan officially assumed the post of Grand Marshal of All Forces under the Bureau of Military Affairs and, acting on Yang Guang's instructions, began reforming the Sui army.

Just as Wang Yan had previously told Shi Your Majesty, he already had a plan in mind.

Under the Bureau of Military Affairs, he established the Hall of Military Strategy, which served as the administrative body for the entire Bureau.

He established the Hall of Martial Instruction to train military officers of all ranks, while also recruiting scholars from humble families to provide literacy education within the army, formulate training plans, and so forth.

He established the Hall of Armaments, responsible for researching weapons, managing the arsenal, supervising the construction of warships, and similar tasks.

He established the Hall of Logistics, responsible for rear supplies and grain, the centralized dispatch of armaments, functioning essentially as a transport corps.

He established the Hall of Military Discipline, responsible for enforcing military codes, supervision, and law execution, as well as overseeing troops during wartime.

He established the Hall of Merit Evaluation, responsible for verifying battle merits, providing post-war compensation, handling promotions and assessments, managing army welfare, and so on.

He established the Hall of Mountains and Seas, responsible for surveying and mapping the terrain of all regions, conducting related military research to identify key strategic locations everywhere, and handling matters concerning military intelligence.

The heads of these halls were all appointed from among the various Generals; Wang Yan personally led the Hall of Military Strategy, Shi Your Majesty served as the Left Marshal overseeing the Hall of Military Discipline, the Hall of Merit Evaluation, and the Hall of Mountains and Seas, while He Ruobi served as the Right Marshal overseeing the Hall of Martial Instruction, the Hall of Armaments, and the Hall of Logistics.

Beneath the six halls were various other specialized functional departments, such as schools and libraries under the Hall of Martial Instruction; swords, bows, crossbows, and warships under the Hall of Armaments; grain escort units and road-and-bridge corps under the Hall of Logistics; and mapping and intelligence units under the Hall of Mountains and Seas, all with subdivided responsibilities for specific execution.

This constituted the top management team, with the Hall of Mountains and Seas, the Hall of Merit Evaluation, the Hall of Military Discipline, the Hall of Logistics, and the Hall of Martial Instruction to be established vertically down to the local levels.

Since the Sui Dynasty was currently peaceful, a grand military competition was held across the entire army to screen talent for positions in these offices, which also served as an assessment of the Sui army's combat effectiveness.

As for the Sixteen Guards that Yang Guang had originally reformed, Wang Yan made no adjustments; after all, the original leaders were already delighted with that reform, and if he were to turn around and change it again, it would be strange if Yang Guang remained happy.

Instead, he further clarified the quotas for local troops.

Currently, the Sui Dynasty comprised 192 commanderies and 1,284 counties, a figure that included the newly acquired grassland territories; he stipulated that each county must maintain a company of one hundred men, while the seat of each commandery must host a battalion of one thousand troops.

Adding these two figures together, the realm now possessed a professional force of 320,000 men to maintain local stability; simultaneously, it was mandated that all local soldiers must serve in a location different from their home, at minimum in a different commandery.

The Water Army was renamed the Navy, expanded to a establishment of 60,000 men, and split into three routes: one stationed at Donglai, one at Jiangdu, and one at Yang Jian'an, granting them broader jurisdiction over the seas to crack down on smuggling.

Simultaneously, the expansion of the Navy signaled that the Sui Dynasty would invest more heavily in maritime trade and reap greater rewards; with mountains of gold and silver and all sorts of resources outside, bringing them back meant profit; the costs of maintaining the Navy would be earned back by the Navy itself going out to acquire goods, ensuring the naval soldiers lived in luxury.

The reform led by Wang Yan this time primarily strengthened supervision over the Navy; the reason for not expanding previously was precisely this concern, as the Navy had been too free and unrestricted.

Now that the Navy was divided into three parts, with additional oversight from the Hall of Military Discipline and the Hall of Merit Evaluation, a corresponding system of checks and balances was in place; with three forces, it was impossible for all to rebel, and even if only one force remained, or even just one ship and a few hundred naval soldiers, the Sui Dynasty could rapidly rebuild its navy and hunt down the defecting naval forces across the world, for the Sui Dynasty possessed such capability.

As for the massive border army, no rash moves were made, and its original state was maintained; however, departments such as Law Enforcement and Merit Evaluation were dispatched there, utilizing annual assessments and inspections to gradually purge the border army, slowly removing those who had corrupted military discipline.

This was akin to cutting flesh with a dull knife, avoiding provoking collective resistance from the border army and thus peacefully completing the purification of the border forces.

The overall military structure consisted of these major components; in addition, there was the training of the Fubing militia during agricultural slack seasons, which was also the responsibility of the Hall of Martial Instruction, implemented locally as the duty of every county's captain of a hundred.

On another front, Wang Yan also leveraged the role of local troops in maintaining stability, assigning all local forces the duty of upholding local public order; in other words, regarding various criminal issues, local troops need only arrest the perpetrators, and if there was resistance during the arrest, they were authorized to kill without hesitation.

Furthermore, the commandery-level troops served as the main force for protecting the realm and securing the people; their duties were identical to those of the county-level troops but operated across the entire commandery, and they held the authority to mobilize county-level troops as well as temporarily conscript registered militia to launch strikes against rebellious forces within their borders, such as illegal criminal gangs gathering in the mountains and forests, or local powerful families connected to these mountain bandits and river pirates.

This arrangement naturally constituted an overreach of authority, as it usurped the law enforcement powers of local officials; who qualified as a criminal was no longer defined by the county magistrate but was freely defined by the local military.

This measure naturally met with opposition, sparking another wave of cries to execute Wang Yan, with the hundred officials firmly refusing to allow the implementation of this plan.

Thus, Wang Yan settled for a compromise, stating that locally, county magistrates could request assistance from local troops, and furthermore, that local troops, while on patrol, could freely enforce the law upon encountering criminals.

At the same time, Wang Yan explained the reasoning to Yang Guang; since Yang Guang had already supported him, he continued to do so, and the hundred officials reluctantly accepted this outcome, thereby establishing this power.

In ancient times, with poor transportation and deeply entrenched local powerful families, granting power to any party amounted to the same thing; ultimately, collaboration with local powerful families was inevitable, so rather than asking which side would grow dominant, it was more a matter of which side was more deeply entangled with the local elites, as everyone was in collusion and the local families were simply willing to cooperate.

After all, county magistrates were rotating officials who stayed for a few years before leaving, and thus could never overpower the local powerful families; since the establishment of the Chinese bureaucratic system, countless local officials had died, not from illness, but from fires, falls from heights, and so forth, all labeled as accidents, yet there could not possibly be that many accidents...

Beyond these measures, Wang Yan also redesigned the logistics supply routes; combining inland water transport, coastal shipping, and various factors such as locally available grain, he optimized logistical distribution, increased speed, and reduced losses en route.

He also established the supply system for local troops, defining the quotas that localities were required to bear, with grain resolved directly on-site and the court compensating the localities through other means; simultaneously, local troops were allocated some farmland, allowing them to engage in military farming to supplement a significant portion of their consumption, or to grow more vegetables and the like, improving their diet.

The primary objective was to reduce grain transshipment, minimize losses, and save expenditures.

As for other armaments, warships, and so forth, these had always been researched by dedicated personnel with a well-established industry; however, after the separation of military and civil administration, all relevant personnel originally belonging to various departments were transferred to the Hall of Armaments.

Wang Yan could not control other areas, but since he now commanded the entire Sui army, the various production personnel and laborers involved numbered in the millions.

With the Sui Dynasty's standing army exceeding 600,000, the number of people serving these troops easily surpassed 1.6 million, including those raising horses, engaging in military farming, cooking, transporting, producing, and so on—a vast multitude of people.

Nowadays, the Sui Dynasty was truly a nouveau riche, possessing wealth it did not know how to spend; driven by maritime trade, the continuously shipped-back riches pushed the Sui Dynasty's prosperity to new peaks, shipload after shipload.

The Sui Dynasty's commerce was flourishing, productivity was rising, and the situation was excellent, now capable of supporting many endeavors.

Therefore, Wang Yan improved the soldiers' treatment and simultaneously established base salaries for various artisan households, adding piece-rate wages calculated precisely down to every arrow shaft and arrowhead, with the name of the responsible artisan stamped on each to facilitate piece-rate accounting and subsequent quality control.

The largest expenditure was the exemption of the army from corvée labor; instead of mandatory levies, money was spent to hire people to work, which greatly boosted enthusiasm, while the money disbursed by the military would circulate back through other channels.

If full circulation did not occur, then it would be time to strike the wealthy families.

This was exactly what Wang Yan told Yang Guang; Yang Guang was also worried about how to spend money, as what constrained his spending was manpower and land resources, not the money itself.

Now that Wang Yan had explained everything to him at length, and since he had been pondering this for years anyway, with nowhere to spend the money and gold and silver piling up into mountains, he decided to just spend it.

After all, overseas there were numerous gold mines and silver mines, all of which were essentially money.

Thus, Yang Guang agreed, deciding to use the military sector as a pilot program first...

In fact, Yang Guang could also feel the prosperity of the Sui Dynasty; since the advent of maritime trade, officials' salaries had been increased several times, and the first installment of commercial tax had been collected; although Yang Guang knew there must be some trickery involved, it was still an enormous sum he had never anticipated.

Overall, as long as Yang Guang did not torment the common people to death or pressure the wealthy families to the brink, the Sui Dynasty's Jiangshan would remain very stable; the fear was that excessive force would lose the people's hearts, inciting the powerful aristocratic families to stir up rebellion, filling the land with beacon fires of war, which would be disastrous.

Therefore, Wang Yan had always been advising Yang Guang, but Yang Guang was always impatient, urgently wanting the Sui Dynasty's Jiangshan to match his ideal vision...

"Enough, every time you see Me you say these things; how could I not know? It is just that such a Jiangshan is truly mesmerizing..."

Yang Guang waved his hand impatiently and changed the subject, asking, "How are the arrangements for the matter you mentioned progressing? When shall we launch?"

"Your Majesty, see, you are getting impatient again."

Wang Yan said with a smile, "Now that the regulations have just been set, the rotation of local troops cannot be completed in less than a year or half a year; furthermore, the border army must also be stabilized, and the logistics and transport systems need to be fine-tuned; killing one family or surname is a small matter, but we are killing many; has Your Majesty forgotten that last time when I suppressed the rebellion in Bingzhou, the court was in an uproar, as if our Sui Dynasty's Jiangshan was about to perish in an instant?

Without making thorough preparations, I dare not act rashly; if the entire realm rebels at that time, how shall we conclude matters? Your Majesty should not be impatient; at the latest by the end of next year, we will make a move to test the mettle of these great clans."

Yang Guang let out a long sigh and said somewhat reluctantly, "Then let us wait a little longer."

"Your Majesty, how is the canal construction progressing?"

Speaking of this, Yang Guang laughed: "Your method, even scaled up to the present, remains effective; what was originally a one-year project was actually completed in just nine months. The officials I dispatched report that the counties from which laborers were conscripted have become much livelier, and commerce is indeed thriving."

"The same holds true for Luoyang. Last time you mentioned that working in winter was too harsh, so I decided to dismiss the conscripted laborers, provide extra money and grain, and distribute cotton robes; those willing to work could continue, while those unwilling could return home. Unexpectedly, the workforce did not shrink; instead, upon hearing the news, many more commoners voluntarily came to work, saying they would labor until the twelfth lunar month before going home, return after the Lantern Festival, and continue until spring."

"You haven't visited Luoyang; I went there last month. It was truly bustling; numerous wine shops have opened, along with stores selling daily necessities. According to Yuwen Kai, the area has gradually become lively, everyone is earning well, and they all call me a sage ruler. Xu Ziyan, your merit is immense indeed."

"What merit does your subject have? It is because Your Majesty holds all people in your heart and wishes for their well-being that the masses naturally feel grateful for Your Majesty's benevolence."

Yang Guang laughed heartily, extremely satisfied.

Yang Guang did not necessarily think highly of the common people; indeed, seeing them might make him frown, disliking the strange odor on their bodies, their filth, and their mouths full of yellowed teeth.

But if the common people praised him, he did not object; in fact, he was exceedingly proud.

Thus, Wang Yan continued to flatter shamelessly: "Even the ancient sage emperors—Yao, Shun, Yu, and Tang—cannot compare to Your Majesty by even a fraction."

"That goes too far; how could I possibly compare to them?"

"How could Your Majesty not compare to them? It is only a matter of time. Your Majesty has ascended the throne only recently; with another ten or eight years of civil governance and martial achievements, Your Majesty will be an emperor unparalleled in a thousand ages—no, an emperor unparalleled for ten thousand ages!"

"Only you know how to speak so smoothly." Yang Guang shook his head with amusement, then asked seriously, "What is your view on Yang Su?"

"Your Majesty, your subject generally does not look at him; that old thing is too annoying."

"Soon he won't be annoying anymore..."

Wang Yan raised an eyebrow, appearing very surprised: "Is he planning to rebel?"

Yang Guang glanced aside and said lazily: "The last edict left by my late father has still not been found to this day, and that old rogue Gao Jiong has also vanished without a trace. Yuwen Huaji has investigated for a long time with no results. Since Yang Su handled this matter back then, I cannot help but suspect him."

Wang Yan suddenly understood, then smiled: "Excellent; once Yang Su dies, the Hongnong Yang clan will suffer a heavy blow, allowing Your Majesty to achieve multiple goals with one move. Your Majesty, shall your subject deploy troops to..."

"Why use an ox-cleaver to kill a chicken? For such a trivial matter, Yuwen Huaji is just the right person to handle it."

Yang Guang burst into laughter, and Wang Yan accompanied him with a smile...

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