After listening for a long time, Xi Ren hadn’t expected Han Qian to be contemplating such far-reaching problems. She couldn’t help but ask in puzzlement: “You want to establish a new bureau to resolve so many problems?”

“That’s right. There must be a new place with sufficient authority and status to settle them. Only then will meritorious officials and military commanders be willing—or rather, feel at ease—to hand over the military and political powers in their hands to more capable and energetic successors. After all, not everyone is like Li Yu. If the new settlement consists entirely of meritorious officials and military commanders or those with sufficient prestige, and they control the power of deliberation and decision-making, then if my descendants are sufficiently brilliant, they will naturally have the ability to suppress them. But if they lack ability and just muddle through, there won’t be any problems—it won’t harm state governance. This way, the position beneath my backside will no longer seem so exceptional and incomparable, no longer ‘those who occupy it can control others’ life and death, while those who lose it have their lives controlled by others’—it won’t be so critical anymore. This will save my descendants from fighting each other bloody over it,” Han Qian said. Pillowing his head on Xi Ren’s lap, he gazed at the distant azure sky outside the window and continued, “Of course, many things cannot be accomplished overnight, but this chess move must still be made first…”

Separating the Imperial Secretariat from the Three Departments so that it would no longer be directly controlled by executive officials appointed by the central government, but instead forming something like an imperial clan and nobility council as a deliberative assembly—this was Han Qian’s preliminary idea.

He was also clear that matters involving specific personnel selection and deliberation rules couldn’t be accomplished in one step. At least for now, he didn’t want this newly formed nobility council to place too many restrictions on him.

He currently considered having his uncle Han Daoming and Zhu clan imperial minister Zhu Juezhong jointly head the Deliberative Assembly, settling into it those senior officers and meritorious nobles from the old Liang army who found it difficult to adapt to the new administration—this would also serve as an explanation to Zhu Yu and the old officials of the Liang state.

Whether it was the old master, Yun Puzi, Lei Jiuyuan, or Wen Muqiao—all were advancing in years and shouldn’t directly control military and political affairs that consumed enormous energy. They could all enter the Deliberative Assembly as deliberative ministers or remonstrance grand masters to contribute their remaining heat, rather than being cooped up in their mansions with nowhere to pass the time.

The daily affairs of the Deliberative Assembly would be presided over by executive officials like Qin Wen, who could also monitor the assembly’s activities for him. But these executive officials would mainly serve the deliberative ministers or remonstrance grand masters rather than directly interfering with deliberation, review, and rejection powers.

The Deliberative Assembly would first begin preliminary operations, and subsequently the selection of deliberative personnel and deliberation rules could be gradually perfected.

Only with the Deliberative Assembly could the new and old systems merge and form a truly systematic legal framework—this would become reality.

Han Qian hadn’t discussed these kinds of problems with Xi Ren and the other women before, mainly because before this year, he simply hadn’t imagined that his status and position would undergo such earth-shaking changes in such a short time. It wasn’t until the end of May this year, when the Heluo war temporarily concluded, that he had the energy to stand at the level of a nation and comprehensively contemplate these problems.

“Just listening makes my head spin. These matters really shouldn’t be things I think about,” Xi Ren lamented.

“Come, let me massage your shoulders,” Han Qian sat up straight and had Xi Ren sit beside him.

Though it was late autumn, inside the palace chambers it was warm as spring. Xi Ren wore a water-blue jacket and skirt with an apricot-yellow outer garment. After a hard day’s work, her hair bun had shifted slightly askew, exposing her snow-white crystalline neck, tender as jade—it directly provoked the impulse to take a gentle bite.

Before Han Qian could extend his roving hands, they heard footsteps approaching. Xi Ren sat properly beside the desk. It was Wang Zhe and Yin Peng, accompanied by an official, carrying a stack of documents from the Southern Secretariat.

For the specific and trivial routine administrative affairs, Han Qian delegated whenever he could. He only needed to stay abreast of the latest situations. He also thought of quickly forming a deliberative system, but military and political affairs couldn’t be delegated.

It had been two months since Great Liang and Chu formally signed the peace agreement in Jinling. Throughout these two months until the end of the year, both sides had to fulfill the implementation and execution of the peace talks.

On Great Liang’s side, specifically Tian Cheng, Guo Duanduo, Zhao Qi and others presided over the Southern Secretariat, which was responsible for the specific execution and supervision of the peace talks. Every ten days, a batch of documents would be sent to Han Qian’s desk.

Currently things appeared to be implementing quite well on both sides. Border trade had also normalized. The backlog of commercial goods from the earlier period was being sold quite smoothly through the tributary states along the river and around Lake Tai into the Jianghuai heartland. Salt, timber, tung oil, livestock, medicinal materials, ox bristles, leather and other items urgently needed in western Huai were also smoothly transported from the eastern Huai salt fields and from Hunan, Jiangxi and other places.

This meant that the Liang-Chu peace agreement that Han Qian had been most anxious about could now be considered settled.

Given the current situation within the Chu court where various factions balanced each other, as long as they made no substantial threatening moves against Chu on the southern front, it wouldn’t be an easy matter for the Chu court internally to reach consensus and actively tear up the peace agreement.

This meant that subsequently he could confidently concentrate his main energy on the northern front.

Yin Peng also reported on the situation over the past ten-plus days where Wen Bo had dispatched small elite forces into Xiangshan to conduct infiltration warfare.

After these ten-plus days of adjustment and contact, Yin Peng could now competently handle his current duties fairly well.

Small forces crossed the Yu River from Mangshan and entered deep into Xiangshan. Tian Weiye immediately responded on the opposite bank—besides strengthening military patrols on the northern side of Xiangshan, he also dispatched troops to directly encircle and suppress the areas where Liang forces were infiltrating.

However, the Mongol army couldn’t build fortifications on every inch of Xiangshan’s territory. In the rugged and treacherous terrain, driving all the elite Liang forces conducting small-scale infiltrations back to the southern bank of the Yu River was definitely not an easy matter.

Just yesterday, the Mongol army had deliberately mobilized naval forces from Mengzhou into the main channel of the Yu River, wanting to blockade the Yu River waterway north of Mangshan to assist in eliminating the elite Liang forces that had infiltrated Xiangshan.

Luoyang already possessed some warship construction capability, but it wasn’t until late August that they produced the first batch of warships, mainly medium and small-sized Red Horse boats and Assault ships. The quantity was still far from sufficient to seize control of the Yu River waterway.

The shipbuilding technology of the Mongols and the northern regions lagged behind that of Jianghuai—not to mention comparing it with the shipyards at Xuzhou, East Lake, Huoqiu, and Shouchun. But Wusu Dashi and Xiao Yiqing ordered Mengzhou and the upper and middle reaches of the Yu River—Puzhou, Jinzhou, Yanzhou, and along the Wei River at Yongzhou and other places—to all build ships. Regardless of quality, the warships currently equipped by the Mongol navy were sufficient to equip a naval force of over twelve thousand men.

In terms of naval scale alone, the Mongol army in the upper and middle reaches of the Yu River was currently ten times that of the Liang army. Han Qian naturally ordered the newly formed Heluo Naval Brigade to currently limit their activities to the Yiluo River waterways, even mainly relying on land-based war machines on both banks of Baima Gorge to drive Mongol naval warships out of the Yiluo River.

Now the Mongol army had transferred naval warships into the Yu River waterway, but Han Qian wasn’t worried that the small forces that had infiltrated Xiangshan earlier would fall into a desperate situation with their retreat cut off. In fact, in another month, the Yu River would freeze over and the Mongol naval warships would be forced to withdraw to their naval camps. When Wen Bo needed to support the forces that had entered Xiangshan, he would only need to send people across the river ice to deliver supplies into Xiangshan.

The Mongol army showed no signs of launching a major southern assault this winter. The freezing of the Yu River would become an advantageous condition for them.

When the river ice melted next year, Luoyang would probably be able to build enough warships for a full naval brigade. At that time, even if the Heluo naval forces were still only one-third or one-quarter the size of the enemy forces, Han Qian was still confident about forming a fleet to leave the Yiluo River and operate in the Yu River north of the Hulao Pass and Mangshan defense lines.

At that time, they could teach the Mongols how naval warfare was really fought.

As long as they gained control of the Yu River waterway, they could cut off the connection between Xingyang and Mengzhou on the northern bank. Since the Yu River had broken its dikes east of Xingyang, the connection between Xingyang and Bianliang had actually already been severed by the great flood waters of the breached Yu River. In reality, at that time they could besiege Xingyang and, together with Zhao Wuji, Li Xiu and other units stationed in Xuzhou, annihilate the Xingyang garrison.

Only by capturing Xingyang would the eastern flank of Heluo be relatively secure. After that, they could deploy military force against Guanzhong.

Of course, even if the timing to launch a major campaign to recover Guanzhong was still far off, Kong Xirong, who currently led troops stationed at Shangluo, even if he couldn’t launch a major counterattack on the Weinan Plain from Lantian Pass, could still dispatch small forces into the mountain regions of the northern foothills of the Qinling Mountains on the western flank to conduct corresponding infiltration warfare—this was also the tactic Kong Xirong excelled at most.

Moreover, in the clauses of the Liang-Chu peace agreement, Li Zhigao and Chai Jian’s garrison forces west of Canglang City in Yunyang and Fangling were required not to exceed five thousand. After more than half a year of rest and reorganization, Han Qian had also written to Li Zhigao and Chai Jian, requiring them to dispatch troops from Lueyang in northwestern Liangzhou, advancing through the Chencang Road to attack Fengzhou and Dasan Pass and other fortified cities and military outposts in the northern section of the Chencang Road currently occupied by Wang Xiaoxian’s forces.

The military campaign didn’t need to be too hasty, but moving troops to the northwestern flank of Liangzhou and restraining as many enemy forces as possible, creating greater military pressure on them, would also benefit the further easing of the Heluo situation.

“Is there any new activity on the Liangzhou side?” Han Qian wasn’t worried about Kong Xirong’s situation. Looking at Yin Peng and Wang Zhe, he was mainly concerned about the troop movements of Li Zhigao and Chai Jian’s forces.

“Over these two months, more than six thousand troops from Liangzhou have moved west to Mianyang and Lueyang, but Li Zhigao has also submitted a memorial from Liangzhou that just arrived in Luoyang today…” Wang Zhe said, retrieving one memorial from the pile and passing it over.

Memorials from Liangzhou involving military secrets were sent directly to the Military Intelligence Staff Bureau and were not under the jurisdiction of the Left and Right Secretariats.

Han Qian took the memorial Li Zhigao had sent from Liangzhou. While flipping through it, he gestured for Wang Zhe to explain the essential points first.

“Li Zhigao believes that Wang Xiaoxian has thirty thousand elite troops garrisoned in Feng and Qi prefectures, defending the dangerous Chencang and Xiegu routes more than adequately. If he dispatches troops from Lueyang and other places, it will be difficult to make progress. He’s therefore thinking of advancing from Mianyang along the Mian River—the upper reaches of the Han River—into Lueyang, then proceeding west from Lueyang through the Xiniu Post ancient road into Chengzhou. From there he could occupy Wudu and Qishan to threaten Tianshui. If he could persuade the Shu army to advance north together from Jiangyou Pass, they could jointly seize the Longxi region and then restrain and threaten enemy forces in Guanzhong from the western flank,” Wang Zhe briefly summarized the memorial Li Zhigao had submitted, then continued, “However, although the Liangzhou forces receive grain relief from Shu, their weapons and armor are inadequate. From Lueyang to Chengzhou, the entire route consists of narrow and treacherous roads. The soldiers would have to abandon their horses and couldn’t carry heavy equipment. They currently urgently lack light armor and crossbows and other military equipment. Li Zhigao hopes Luoyang can allocate three thousand sets of each. The various ministers at the Staff Bureau all believe we must guard against Li Zhigao…”

Jing Hao, Han Yuanqi, Gao Shao, Guo Que, Feng Xuan, and Chen Jingzhou, who had arrived in Luoyang two months ago, all held the title of Vice Director of Military Affairs. Distinguished from the ordinary meaning of military advisor, they served as Great Liang’s highest-level military executive officials, assisting Han Qian in handling large and small military and war affairs.

When Li Zhigao’s memorial was sent to the Military Intelligence Staff Bureau, they would review it and first formulate a preliminary opinion. Particularly important matters still required joint consultation with the Participating Administrators of the four bureaus.

Han Qian flipped to the end of the memorial and confirmed that Chen Jingzhou’s written recommendations were attached at the back. He smiled and joked: “Chen Jingzhou says he came from mountain bandit stock, yet his calligraphy is much more beautiful than mine…”

Wang Zhe and Yin Peng just smiled awkwardly in acknowledgment.

Currently, the surplus from Xuzhou’s commercial goods exported to Shu were directly exchanged in Shu territory for grain, well salt, horses, leather goods, tung oil, medicinal materials and other supplies that were transported through Liangzhou to Xichuan. Of these, thirty thousand piculs of grain and corresponding well salt and other supplies remained in Liangzhou each month.

This was also one of the conditions for securing Liangzhou’s allegiance initially.

However, relative to Liangzhou’s two hundred thousand military and civilian population, with a grain shortage reaching fifty percent, the monthly input of over thirty thousand piculs of supplies could currently only help Liangzhou stabilize the situation.

Of course, the people of Luoyang only wanted to barely help Li Zhigao stabilize the Liangzhou situation—keeping them neither full nor starving was most convenient for control.

If they transported large quantities of excellent weapons and armor and other supplies to Liangzhou, after the Liangzhou forces were truly strengthened, whether Li Zhigao would still be obedient remained a matter of deep doubt in everyone’s hearts.

Additionally, west of the Qinling and Longshan mountains and north of the Minshan Mountains had once been the jurisdiction of the previous dynasty’s Longyou Circuit and Longyou Military Commissioner.

Initially, Right Resolute Guard General, Vice Commissioner of Longyou Defense, and Duke of Taiyuan Guo Zhiyun served as Military Commissioner. Later, famous generals like Wang Juntuo, Geshu Han, and Guo Ziyi were stationed there with seventy thousand elite troops, defending the twelve prefectures and garrisons of Longyou as well as the Protectorate General to Pacify the West and the Protectorate General to Pacify the North.

After the An Lushan Rebellion, the Longyou and Hexi garrisons withdrew eastward, and these places were successively occupied by Tibet for over one hundred fifty years.

Even though the influence of the previous dynasty’s Protectorate General to Pacify the West and Protectorate General to Pacify the North had long since waned, in the late years of the previous dynasty during Emperor Zhaozong’s reign, they had dispatched troops to recover Qin, Cheng, Wu, Wei and other Longyou prefectures near the Fengxiang Military Commissioner.

When the previous dynasty collapsed, the Longyou prefectures again fell into scattered disarray. But the prefectures adjacent to Longshan and the western foothills of the Qinling Mountains not only had tribes that maintained awe toward the previous dynasty, but also had large numbers of descendants of Han military families who had taken root and multiplied there.

Li Zhigao’s status as an imperial clan descendant of the previous dynasty was now semi-public. Chen Jingzhou, Han Yuanqi and the others not only worried that after the Liangzhou forces were strengthened, Li Zhigao would occupy Liangzhou and refuse to obey orders, but he might also use his status as an imperial clan descendant of the previous dynasty to win over the Longyou tribes and descendants of Han military families—there was concern that the tail would become too large to wag.

Yin Peng was still in the phase of familiarizing himself with the situation. Wang Zhe was also not hesitant to express his own opinion, feeling that strengthening Li Zhigao’s forces at this time involved too many uncertain factors.

“I see nothing wrong with Li Zhigao wanting to play a greater role,” Han Qian shook his head and said. “If I hadn’t previously worried that Liangzhou was unwilling to bear more military responsibility, I would naturally have hoped Liangzhou could send an elite force through the Xiniu Post ancient road to attempt to establish a foothold in Wuzhou. Of course, my current goal is not merely to have Li Zhigao restrain and threaten enemy forces in Guanzhong from the western flank—I more so hope he can occupy Wu and Cheng prefectures and strike at and divide tribes like Pingxia!”

The once-glorious Tibetan dynasty had been internally fragmented for several decades, subsequently losing control over peripheral regions including Songpan and Longyou—which included Liangzhou, Ganzhou, Suzhou, Guazhou and other places occupying the Hexi Corridor, as well as Yinzhou and Xiazhou occupying the Hetao Plain.

The tribes inhabiting these regions were currently also in a state of fragmentation. Previously, only the Qiang tribes of Pingxia living in Xiazhou had submitted to the Mongols, advancing from the northwest to occupy Ling, Qin and other prefectures. They had once occupied Xiaoguan, the gateway fortress to northwestern Guanzhong. But during the period when Zhao Mengji and Wang Xiaoxian straddled Fengzhou and Qizhou, they also gained more space to survive and deploy forces against Shu through the Yinping Road. They dispatched troops out of Longshan and seized the eastern portion of Qinzhou west of Longshan from the Pingxia people.

What Han Qian now had to consider was not merely having Li Zhigao dispatch troops into Wuzhou and Chengzhou in southern Qinzhou to restrain Wang Xiaoxian’s forces. He was more concerned that when the Mongols suffered setbacks in their attack on Heluo, they would subsequently strengthen their control over the Hetao and Hexi tribes through the Pingxia people, enabling them to lead an even more powerful cavalry force to threaten Guanzhong and Shu from the west.

More critically, under the leadership of their chieftain Li Yuanshou, the Pingxia people currently already showed signs of rising.

Han Qian absolutely did not wish that while he led Great Liang forces to resist the Mongols, it would result in another powerful tribal force emerging in the northwest that integrated the Hetao and Hexi tribes, much less did he wish this force would be used by the Mongols.

Even if Li Zhigao led his forces into Wuzhou and Chengzhou, winning over and dividing the Hexi tribes while striking at the Pingxia people under Li Sixiao’s leadership, he might possibly become a force to be reckoned with. But from a long-term perspective, if he didn’t want the geographically crucial Liangzhou to fall into the hands of local separatist forces, yet couldn’t completely remove the wariness of Li Zhigao, Chai Jian and others in the short term, he might as well simply leave them some survival space in Hexi—perhaps they could coexist peacefully.

Han Qian tore off the recommendations that Chen Jingzhou, Han Yuanqi and the others had attached to the memorial. Taking up his ink-soaked brush, he directly wrote his response on Li Zhigao’s memorial, writing down one by one his concerns that the Longyou tribes would be won over by the Mongols and that the Pingxia people showed signs of rising.

Han Qian hoped that after the Liangzhou forces advanced westward, besides restraining and striking at Wang Xiaoxian’s army near Longshan, they would pay more attention to winning over and dividing the Hexi tribal forces and guarding against the Pingxia people. He straightforwardly appointed Li Zhigao as Commissioner for Pacifying Longyou.

Beyond the weapons and armor Li Zhigao had requested in his memorial, Han Qian also required the Military Intelligence Staff Bureau to strengthen reconnaissance of this region, providing more intelligence support for the Liangzhou forces’ combat and activities in this area. He also proposed deploying a thirty-person medical team to support their activities in the western foothills of the Qinling and Longshan regions.

As for the problem of the tail becoming too large to wag that Han Yuanqi and the others worried about, the more critical issue was that the central government must continuously grow stronger—must become sufficiently powerful.

As the site of nine ancient dynasties with three thousand years of city-building history, Luoyang and its surrounding areas, including the middle and upper reaches of the Yi and Luo rivers to the south, had for millennia always been one of the most developed regions for agriculture and water conservancy along the Yu River.

In the late years of the previous dynasty, due to warfare, not even one in ten households remained in Heluo. But under Zhu Yu’s management, it took only ten years to restore prosperity once again.

When Liang Shixiong occupied Heluo, even though he was beaten back by Zhu Yu, for the Mongol and Eastern Liang armies it was merely a temporary retreat. During the withdrawal, they didn’t make great efforts to destroy local water conservancy facilities—the irrigation ditches of the Yiluo River were even destroyed on Han Qian’s orders.

When Zhu Yu governed Heluo, he placed extreme emphasis on constructing weirs and dams on the Yi River, Luo River and their tributaries.

In his early years, Zhu Yu built weirs and dams not to develop water-powered machinery, but to raise the water level of streams flowing through hilly terrain so they could irrigate the higher-elevation slopes on both sides.

In the Heluo region, throughout successive dynasties plus those Zhu Yu had renovated and newly built in his early years, there were over sixty large and small weirs and dams. Besides creating nearly two million additional mu of irrigated land in the hillside regions of the middle reaches of the Yi and Luo rivers, greatly reducing flood disasters in Luoyang, Yanshi, Gong County and other places in the lower reaches of the Yiluo River, this also provided the most direct and convenient conditions for Heluo to develop on a large scale a workshop system utilizing water power for industrial production.

Currently in Huaiyang Mountain, Wujian Mountain and other places, over a hundred weirs and dams had been successively built for irrigation and developing water-powered workshops—but this foundation had taken four to five years to establish.

The only unfavorable factor in the Heluo region was that there would be a freeze period lasting over two months.

As the mid- to high-level engineers who had migrated north from Xuzhou successively arrived in Luoyang, the precision component and weapons manufacturing facilities directly under the Military Intelligence Staff Bureau would be ready for trial production by next spring. Subsequently, even with over two months of freeze period each year, the impact wouldn’t be too great.

Each year during this season, besides annual holidays, they could also arrange for equipment maintenance and renovation, as well as training and study for engineers and craftsmen.

The national capital Luoyang and the counties of Jingzhao, including the mountain people who had fled into the Songshan and northern foothills of the Funiu Mountains to escape warfare, currently had a registered population of eight hundred twenty thousand. After Huazhou and Shangzhou—Shangluo—accepted refugees fleeing war, they also registered nearly four hundred thousand population.

Currently the five prefectures of western Huai had a population of one million nine hundred thousand. In recent years, Xuzhou had continuously exported young laborers to western Huai, with its population remaining around two hundred thousand without major growth. Deng and Jun prefectures had a population of two hundred thousand. The western Henan region west of the Ying River and east of the Funiu and Songshan mountains had approximately one million three hundred thousand people. Liang and Jin prefectures occupying the Hanzhong Plain had a population of two hundred thousand. Adding Heluo plus Shang and Hua prefectures’ one million two hundred thousand population, currently Great Liang’s total registered civilian households amounted to approximately five million people.

With the agricultural and water conservancy system of the middle and upper reaches of the Yiluo River remaining intact, the situation they currently faced was much more optimistic than Han Qian had initially expected.

He was now confident in pushing Wen Bo to organize small forces for infiltration warfare in the mountain regions of Xiangshan and Kong Xirong in the areas north and west of Lantian Pass. By mid-November, after the Ying River and other tributaries of the Huai completely froze over, he would also have Zhao Wuji and Li Xiu in Chenzhou and Xuzhou take the lead in launching a counterattack against the southern Bian region controlled by the Eastern Liang army, disrupting the rhythm of Zhu Rang and Liang Shixiong’s integration of forces in eastern Henan and Shandong. At this time, did he need to worry that after Li Zhigao obtained three to four thousand sets of light armor and powerful crossbows, he would become so strong as to be uncontrollable?

Indeed, even if in the future he recovered Guanzhong, Hedong and other regions, or even reunified the Central Plains, even if Li Zhigao established a firm foothold in Longyou and recruited tens of thousands of cavalry—what threat could that possibly pose?