The emperor would rather have a

Chapter 36 Divide Money
On the way to the imperial city, the imperial guards were gradually dispersed to their respective garrisons.

Wait until the emperor and empress's carriages are sent into the palace.

Li Yi also brought the inner palace guards back to the military camp near Xihuamen.

During the past few months of the expedition, the Inner Palace Guards experienced a series of major battles and suffered heavy losses. Some died, some were injured, and less than half of them were still capable of fighting.

During the Battle of Gaoping, nearly a thousand people were killed or wounded. When blocking the Liao army at Xinkou, more than half of the more than 900 cavalrymen brought with them suffered casualties.

If new soldiers are not added quickly, the Inner Palace Guards will hardly be able to maintain their normal organization.

As soon as he returned to the base, Li Yi ordered the soldiers to disband on the spot and go back to reunite with their families.

The Imperial Guards have been fighting outside for several months, and they can rest for a while when they come back. The daily duties will be temporarily handed over to the troops left behind in Tokyo.

"Zhang Jiangong, take all your personal soldiers to the barracks, and also take the two boxes of gifts His Majesty gave me."

Li Yi gave another instruction to the captain of his personal guards.

……

Inside the barracks.

Li Yi stood in front of everyone and without much ado, he directly opened the two boxes of things that the emperor had rewarded him with.

One contained silver ingots and the other contained gold ingots.

"Here are one thousand taels of silver and two hundred taels of gold."

Li Yi got straight to the point and said, "Brothers present here will each receive five taels of silver, and those who were injured and couldn't come will each receive double."

"As for those who died on the battlefield... five portions each."

Thinking of the dead soldiers, Li Yi felt a little heavy in his heart.

Those people were his personal soldiers specially selected from various departments after he was appointed as the commander-in-chief of the inner palace in Luzhou.

Some of them were his subordinates when he was a yamen runner, some were Ma Renyu's former subordinates, and some were people he knew when he was in the inner palace.

There were almost two hundred people, but only about a hundred were standing here.

Most of them were killed when Li Yi was rescuing Shi Yanchao in Xinkou.

Although they defeated the Liao army with fewer troops, they suffered heavy casualties.

"Everyone has received their due rewards, so why are you trying to take a share of Li Dushi's money? If you take a share, Li Dushi will have nothing left..."

All the officers and soldiers looked at each other, not knowing what to say for a moment. It was the captain of the personal guards, Zhang Jiangong, who spoke first.

After fighting for several months outside, you will receive a reward when you return, regardless of whether you have made any achievements or not.

After all, there is hard work without credit.

When the empress went to Shangcai Station to greet the emperor, she brought with her hundreds of carts loaded with treasures.

The soldiers' rewards were paid on the spot.

Those who have made contributions will be rewarded individually, while the rest will be rewarded a total amount which will then be divided privately among the generals of each department.

Li Yi had already divided it once when he was at Shangcaiyi, and what he took out now was his share.

"Yes, we can't take Li Dushi's money."

"Everyone appreciates Envoy Li's kindness..."

"That's right..."

All of a sudden, all the officers and soldiers echoed.

Li Yi shook his head and looked around at everyone: "Everyone followed me and fought bravely, and I got all the biggest benefits. This money is my little token of appreciation, so just accept it with peace of mind."

After saying that, Li Yi saw that no one was moving.

He then commanded, "Just take it if I tell you to. Don't tell me that my words are useless?"

Afterwards, Li Yi asked someone to find tools and cut the gold and silver ingots into pieces of similar size on the spot.

Regardless of military rank, everyone receives the same amount of money.

Although everyone was refusing, they were naturally happy when they actually got the money.

The bulk of the rewards from this expedition were taken by middle and senior generals, while the lower-level officers only got a dozen or twenty strings of cash at most.

Some low-level soldiers who had no merit received even less reward, only one or two strings of cash.

Five taels of silver can be exchanged for at least five or six strings of cash, and the exchange rate privately is even higher, which is already a considerable income.

As for the money distributed to the injured and dead soldiers, Li Yi asked Zhang Jiangong to take people to deliver it to their families.

Many soldiers' homes are in the living area next to the military camp, so it doesn't take much effort.

"The Inner Palace Guards have suffered a lot of casualties, and many positions have become vacant. If there is an opportunity, I will do my best to secure one for everyone."

After hearing Li Yi's assurance, the smiles on everyone's faces became even brighter.

Not only can they earn extra money, but they may even be able to become a lieutenant colonel in the future. Everyone suddenly felt that following Li Dushi was a very promising career.

Li Yi gave a few more instructions and then let everyone go.

Zhang Jiangong was the last one to leave.

As he left, he approached Li Yi and whispered, "If Li Du needs me in the future, just let me know. I will never say no."

Li Yi smiled and nodded, but said nothing more. Zhang Jiangong had been in the Imperial Guard for nearly ten years and had just been promoted to the rank of Right Guard Commander last year, a rank equivalent to that of a centurion.

It's not too bad, but not too good either.

Of course, it is naturally incomparable with Li Yi now. The speed of his promotion is so different.

The reason why Li Yi promoted Zhang Jiangong to be the captain of his personal guards.

One reason was that after he was selected into the Inner Palace Guard, he was originally a soldier under Zhang Jiangong. The other party was one of the ten generals of the Zuoban at the time and was quite caring towards Li Yi.

Secondly, Zhang Jiangong is a down-to-earth person who is very reliable in his work. He has also been working in the imperial guards for many years, so he is more reassuring.

Li Yi made him the captain of his personal guards. It was just a rank transfer, but the number of people under his command doubled.

Moreover, as a close confidant of the commander-in-chief, not only will his status and treatment be improved, but once a position becomes vacant, he will be able to get it first.

Although nominally the transfer of positions in the Imperial Guards had to be decided by the Privy Council and then submitted to the Emperor for approval.

But generally speaking, the commander-in-chief has a great deal of autonomy in military positions below the commander-in-chief.

As long as the commander-in-chief nominates someone, the Privy Council will usually agree. After all, it is the generals who are responsible for the daily management of the army, and the Privy Council is mainly responsible for the overall strategy.

As for military positions of commander and above, the chief generals of each department do have the right to make recommendations, but appointments to positions of this level often require more than just personal bravery to be considered.

Therefore, the Privy Council is still quite cautious about this.

Watching Zhang Jiangong leave, Li Yi suddenly became thoughtful.

He remembered that in history, after Zhao Kuangyin became the Palace Guard Commander, he seemed to have taken advantage of Chai Rong's opportunity to reform the imperial guards and placed a large number of his confidants among the middle and lower-level generals.

Then he won over a group of middle and senior generals who were close to him.

He infiltrated the entire Later Zhou imperial army from top to bottom.

This is how he was crowned as the emperor... With Zhao Da's ready-made experience, why not learn from it?

But it's too early to tell.

More importantly, whether Chai Rong will die early in the future...is now an unknown.

"Brother Yi, I've handed you over to my sister-in-law. Let's go have a drink..."

Just then, Ma Renyu walked in and saw two opened boxes at Li Yi's feet.

He walked over and took a subconscious look, but was immediately shocked: "Damn it, how come this is all there is left? Brother Yi, was your money stolen?"

"Tell me who it is, I must kill him!"

Seeing Ma Renyu rolling up his arms and looking like he was about to rush out to fight.

Li Yi grabbed him and said helplessly, "Who has the guts to come to the Inner Palace Guard's station and rob the Inner Palace Guard Commander's money?"

"Ah?" Ma Renyu was stunned. "Then where's the money?"

"I gave them all to Zhang Jiangong and the others..."

"Damn! They're all gone? Only these three gold bars are left?"

Seeing Li Yi nod, Ma Renyu slapped his head and sighed, "Brother Yi said I was wasting money, but at least I spent money to buy happiness. What's the point of giving it away for free?"

Li Yi didn't respond to his question, but asked, "Have you sent Chen Xiaoniang to the shop and handed her over to my sister-in-law?"

When he passed Longjin Bridge before, he was embarrassed by his status as the commander-in-chief and his attire was too conspicuous.

Li Yi did not take the initiative to talk to Guo.

Instead, he asked Ma Renyu to take Chen Xiaoniang, who was following the logistics vehicle, to the breakfast shop and hand her over to Guo.

"Are you still not confident in my ability to do things?" Ma Renyu patted his chest and assured, "I personally handed the person over to my sister-in-law, and I also told her the girl's background."

"That's good."

"Come on, Brother Yi, there's a new shop on South Street. They make a special Spring Flower Wine that you can't buy anywhere else. I'll take you there to try it!"

Li Yi originally wanted to go back to the breakfast shop directly. For some reason, he was a little eager to see Guo.

However, Ma Renyu insisted on taking him out for a drink to celebrate.

Li Yi couldn't persuade him and had to go with him.

　This chapter has been significantly rewritten.

　　For the time being, a more stable follow-up plot has been selected.

　　The war against Later Shu should be about to begin after Chai Rong completes the reform of the imperial guards.

　　The update is pretty bad, it has been confirmed to be a flop, and it will probably be put on the shelves without any update.

　　I'll try to make the plot better.

　　I'm a little sorry for the update.

　　I would like to thank many readers for their tolerance, which pushed me to the third round of recommendations.

　　The New Year holiday is coming soon, let’s see if the update speed can be increased.

　　Thank you all for your support!

(End of this chapter)