I am Emperor Shizu of Song

Chapter 105: Exceptional Promotion, Magistrate of Hangzhou

One day in November, in Yanfu Palace, Bianjing City.

Zhao Ji seemed particularly excited tonight. He disregarded etiquette and used a tunnel to secretly bring Li Shishi into the palace to do whatever he wanted.

In the past, he still had some dignity and went out of the palace in disguise through the tunnel to find Li Shishi, but today he dared to bring a woman from outside in.

This was also Li Shishi's first time in the palace, and the first time she saw the tunnel with her own eyes, so she knew that the emperor must be in a good mood today. Originally, only Concubine Liu was qualified to sleep here.

After a lot of trouble, when the two of them were catching their breath, Zhao Ji's next words made Li Shishi dumbfounded.

At this critical moment when the smoke should have been smoked afterwards, Zhao Ji took a deep breath and sighed:

"I'm really finding it increasingly difficult to understand this nephew. He's clearly a civil servant. Back in Fanlou, I heard him discuss the past and present, and the gains and losses of the current dynasty. He was so graceful and elegant. How could he do something so desperate?"

Li Shishi was immediately shocked.

How could an emperor, a sage, actually lament such a thing? What a puzzling thing it must be for him to immediately regress after his rationality had briefly taken over his mind?

Li Shishi didn't dare to act rashly, but spoke softly and tenderly: "I don't understand military affairs, so this kind of thing is really rare, isn't it?"

Zhao Ji lay on the couch, lowering his chin slightly. "Never heard of this before or since! A warrior cannot discuss the past and present in such a comprehensive manner, and a scholar cannot make such a desperate move. When Wang Qing brought me the victory report this afternoon, I couldn't believe it."

Li Shishi didn't say anything. She also knew that a martial arts competition among royal family members was not a good thing, and she couldn't comment casually.

Zhao Ji sighed for a while, but did not wait for any feedback. Naturally, he also knew his beloved concubine's concerns, and immediately just muttered to himself:

"With such heroic deeds, it would be unreasonable to let him be the Magistrate of Hangzhou again. He previously served as the Magistrate of Suzhou, where he defeated 100,000 bandits, killing and capturing half of them, and fought to the death with almost no reinforcements from the Western Army. Four governors of Jiangnan have been executed for their crimes, but this man has saved the day. A promotion is needed to appease the people."

Li Shishi: "Your Majesty has a far-sighted vision and must have considered everything."

Zhao Ji muttered to himself again: "Let him be appointed as the prefect of Hangzhou. However, his official posts and assignments are rising too fast, so his rank can be slightly reduced. Tomorrow I will let Wang Qing figure out the specific disposal."

Zhao Ji was too lazy to think about the personnel details. As an emperor, he just needed to set the tone, and others would naturally help him with the rest.

As a result, the wise man Zhao Ji was tired and fell asleep quickly. He gave the instructions early the next morning, and the Secretariat and the Ministry of Personnel quickly organized a discussion.

The final conclusion was to follow the emperor's will and let Zhao Zicheng be the governor of Hangzhou, but his rank was only promoted to the seventh rank of Chaoqinglang, which was considered "high power and low treatment". It was also a compromise to avoid having no bargaining chips when he was transferred in the future.

During the Northern Song Dynasty, if an official performed well and his actual position or assignment was promoted too quickly, his rank would often not be able to keep up, and it would be easy for him to "do high-level work with low-level treatment."

On the contrary, if an official has mediocre performance but has many years of seniority and has accumulated a lot of seniority points, he will easily be assigned a low-ranking position and only be given some second-line assignments, but his rank is very high. It is similar to many officials in later generations who are waiting to retire and withdraw from power struggles, and can be "promoted to a sinecure and wait for high retirement benefits."

Zhao Zicheng had only been promoted to the magistrate of Suzhou not long before, and after being released from prison, he was temporarily appointed as the magistrate of Suzhou. That time, he was only given a temporary assignment, and his rank and treatment remained unchanged. Therefore, until the emperor issued another decree to promote him, he was still enjoying the treatment of a county-level official.

This time, the promotion was still a big step forward for the positions and assignments, while the rank of the officials remained almost unchanged, only from Chao San Lang to Chao Qing Lang.

It's like "earning a county-level salary while doing the work of a prefecture-level city, and this prefecture-level city is the provincial capital." However, Zhao Zi said that he doesn't rely on salaries to make a living and doesn't care about these things at all.

However, this operation also gave Zhao Ji the opportunity to transfer Zhao Zicheng next year. Because Zhao Zicheng's rank was still very low, if he was promoted significantly next year, his actual assignment would be reduced, while it would appear to be a demotion in reality.

Because the Denglai region, where Zhao Ji intended to resettle the people, was undoubtedly much poorer than Hangzhou. He was already the governor of Hangzhou, so transferring him to Laizhou would be a definite demotion. However, if he were to be transferred there and his rank was raised to the same level as a normal governor, or even slightly higher, that would silence everyone.

Zhao Ji's operation finally took about five days to complete the formal process, and then it was returned to Jiangnan according to the normal process. Because this personnel appointment was not a particularly urgent military matter, there was no need to rush it by 600 miles.

The messenger delivering the imperial edict could only travel a hundred miles a day, and it took him nearly half a month to reach Hangzhou. It was already the beginning of the twelfth lunar month when the imperial edict was announced.

...On the second day of the twelfth lunar month, Zhao Zicheng, who had been stationed in Hangzhou for almost twenty days, finally received the imperial decree.

During these twenty days, Zhao Zicheng was certainly not idle. He needed to temporarily help coordinate the military supplies and logistics of the army in southern Zhejiang led by Wang Bing, Yang Zhi and others to suppress the rebellion.

As for Liu Yanqing and Liu Guangshi's troops, who were heading to western Zhejiang to quell the rebellion, Hangzhou would no longer be responsible for logistics, leaving all responsibility to the authorities in Nanjing and Zhenjiang. Western Zhejiang was already located between Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and the Liangzhe route had already suffered enough this year, so it was only right that the Jiangnan East Route (equivalent to the southern Jiangsu portion of present-day Jiangsu and the southern Anhui portion of present-day Anhui) shoulder some of the burden.

Under the guise of military supply dispatch, Zhao Zicheng also initially gained a practical grasp of the civil affairs and financial management of Hangzhou City, and roughly sorted out the local reconstruction work. The entire Hangzhou is still under military management.

So, before the imperial edict arrived, Zhao Zicheng had already essentially been exercising his powers as prefect of Hangzhou. Chen Jian, Zhao Yue, and others acquiesced and even cooperated with him, transforming the Fahui Temple, formerly part of the former palace of the Wuyue Kingdom, into a temporary garrison for the southern expedition to suppress the rebellion, for Zhao Zicheng's use. He spent every night there during these days.

Upon hearing that the imperial angel had arrived, Zhao Zicheng was also very serious. He first asked Chen Jian and Zhao Yue to entertain the angel well. He immediately burned incense, changed clothes, and then received the order.

Afterwards, the angel read out the decree in public: Zhao Zicheng was promoted to the governor of Hangzhou, and was appointed as a court attendant, and the founding marquis of Jiaxing County.

Zhao Zicheng accepted the order according to etiquette, and Chen Jian and Zhao Yue also congratulated him. Afterwards, a grand banquet was held to thank the angel.

After receiving the imperial edict, the court angel also privately revealed some additional information to Zhao Zicheng - these information may have been revealed at the instruction of Zhao Ji, with the purpose of allowing Zhao Zicheng to be mentally prepared when he was transferred again in the future.

The angel said something like this: The appointment of the governor of Hangzhou was just an emergency measure during the war because the rebellion in the south of the Yangtze River had not yet been completely quelled, and a civil servant like Zhao Zicheng, who had just established prestige on the battlefield and had the reputation of "killing Zhu Jie" among the people, was needed to take charge and pacify the situation.

Once Jiangnan is completely stabilized again, the court will need to reuse Zhao Zicheng in other places, because at the moment "bandits are causing trouble in all directions", and it is hoped that Zhao Zicheng can share more of the worries of the emperor and his father.

The angel did not say where the government plans to transfer Zhao Zicheng in the future, but the tone has been revealed, which is "where there are thieves, move there", and hopes that Zhao Zicheng will work hard.

By revealing so much in advance, he probably hoped that Zhao Zicheng would have some time to react, so that things wouldn't be too sudden and he wouldn't feel any resistance. By not saying everything, he could ensure that the power of the gods was unpredictable, and the scale was just right.

Zhao Zicheng certainly knew very well how to deal with this situation. He immediately said to the angel privately: I am just a brick of the Song Dynasty. I will be moved wherever I am needed. I only want to quell the rebellion for the country and bring peace to the world, and I will never care about my personal honor or disgrace.

Seeing that he was so calm, the angel could go back and report back without any worries.

……

After becoming the magistrate of Hangzhou, Zhao Zicheng quickly sorted out on his own how he should carry out his work in the next few months and what aspects he should focus on.

Zhao Zicheng thought to himself, "Zhao Ji has already pointed out that he will transfer me after Fang La and the other bandits are completely pacified. So, I can't do too much complicated farming and construction in Hangzhou these few months. Otherwise, I'll be scapegoating and the secret will be easily leaked."

For now, we should restore order around Hangzhou, focusing on redistributing land, enforcing the law impartially, and winning over the people. Fang La's looting caused the loss of 100,000 households in Hangzhou, many of them wealthy. A rough estimate from the past few days shows that at least half of the land has become unowned.

The government happened to be re-measuring the land, checking the population, and distributing farmland. Fang La was helping me solve the land annexation problem that had accumulated around Hangzhou for more than two hundred years.

The problem of land annexation in Hangzhou did not start with Zhao Kuangyin. It began to accumulate as early as the time of Qian Yuanguan and Qian Hongchu, father and son. There had been no war for more than two hundred years, and the original land annexation here should have been the most serious in the entire Song Dynasty.

The 100,000 households Fang La eliminated weren't necessarily all killed; a small number certainly fled and became hidden households. Especially if these hidden households didn't have any land to begin with, they could only work as tenants or hired farmhands, leaving them with no incentive to re-register.

The government must issue a notice declaring that anyone who re-registers will be allocated at least a certain amount of unowned land, thus attracting population. Furthermore, this number must be precisely calculated to ensure that the income from the land allocated to these escaped households after they are re-registered as white households slightly exceeds the various head taxes and levies they must pay to remain white households. This will provide them with sufficient motivation.

It was already the beginning of the twelfth lunar month. Fang La's remaining forces, along with peripheral bandits like Lü Shinang and Chen Shisi who had voluntarily responded to Fang La's demands, would only last two or three months before being completely wiped out. Therefore, the matter was essentially settled for February of next year.

Zhao Ji's term of office in Hangzhou will only last until the end of the busy spring plowing season next year, so any other long-term achievements would be a waste of time. It would be more cost-effective for me to calculate my time wisely and do something quick and effective.

After sorting out his thoughts in this way, Zhao Zicheng knew what to do in the next few months.

(End of this chapter)