Guo Shao took the things presented by Lu Duosun and retreated to the Yangde Hall.
At this time, in the Yangde Hall, a woman in her thirties was holding an inkstone in both hands. When Guo Shao wanted to dip the ink, she could immediately lift the inkstone and reach it to his hand. Because she always paid attention to Guo Shao's most subtle movements and could judge when he needed something.
This woman was Li Shanggong. Her light red long skirt fell to the ground, covering her lower body. Her legs were kneeling on the ground. Although she did not dare to stare at Guo Shao's face, she kept observing Guo Shao's expression with her peripheral vision. Guo Shao was very focused. His eyes were only on the picture in front of him and the crumpled paper next to him. He turned a blind eye to everything else.
Li Shanggong's arms were weak and her knees were sore from kneeling, but she felt very comfortable. She loved to see Guo Shao's serious and focused expression. There was a scent about him that Li Shanggong found very pleasant.
From time to time, she would carefully peek at what Guo Shao was drawing. There were lines of mountains and rivers. Li Shanggong didn't quite understand what he was drawing, but she knew that Guo Shao was thinking about something big, which was completely different from the trivial matters in the palace. In her heart, she looked up to Guo Shao and felt that he was putting a lot of effort into it, so she inexplicably developed a feeling of pity for him.
At this moment, Guo Shao glanced and saw Li Shang Gong, was stunned for a moment and said: Aren’t you tired of kneeling? Get up quickly.
Li Shanggong blurted out: I am willing to serve Your Majesty
After she finished speaking, her face suddenly turned red and she tilted her head slightly. Guo Shao followed her gaze and saw three men standing beside her, Wang Pu, Li Gu, and Zuo You. However, they were all serious as if they had heard and seen nothing.
Guo Shao placed the brush on the inkstone and said: It is not easy for Lu Duosun to make achievements, so let him be the guest envoy and come to the cabinet study to add an assistant to govern; the guest envoy Zan Jurun will be changed to the Minister of Works and still be in charge of the Military Equipment Supervisor, and also come to the cabinet to add another assistant to govern.
Zuo You hurriedly said: Yes.
The other two did not say anything, because the cabinet was an institution added by Guo Shao not long ago and had not yet formed a formal structure. Now no one knew which government agency was in charge of it. In any case, neither the Privy Council nor the Council of State had any control over it.
Guo Shao pondered for a moment, and then said: I want Zuo You to be replaced as the Minister of Rites and Huang Binglian as the Minister of Justice. Li Gong and Li Gu will ask in the government hall, if everyone thinks there is nothing wrong, then let's do it.
Li Gudao: I obey your order.
Zuo You hurriedly knelt on the ground and bowed, saying: "I thank your Majesty for the grace and honor."
Guo Shao said: The Political Affairs Hall has always been short of people, and the officials are overworked. It is a good thing for you two to help the prime ministers do some work.
He added: This picture needs to be revised, please come back tomorrow.
After hearing this, the three men bowed and said, "We will take our leave."
When they came out of Yangde Hall and walked to a corridor, Li Gu bowed and said, "Congratulations to the Left Vice Minister on your promotion."
Zuo You hurriedly bowed and said, "No, no, no. We should congratulate Huang Binglian, the assistant governor. Huang Binglian has indeed been promoted. I was originally the junior minister of the Ministry of Rites, and I was transferred to the vice minister of the Ministry of Rites, which is a transfer of equal rank. How can I accept the congratulations of Lord Li?"
Wang Pu raised his head and said suddenly in front: All we need is a Tongpingzhangshi.
Zuo You suddenly stopped talking and looked at Li Gu, who smiled and stopped talking.
The three of them continued to move forward. Zuo You kept pondering in his mind that the arrangement that the emperor had just made in a casual manner was indeed of great significance. Just as Wang Pu said, Zuo You and Huang Binglian were assistants to the cabinet and concurrently served as vice ministers of six ministries. If they were given the position of co-prime minister, what would be the difference between them and the prime minister? It seemed that the emperor had arranged for them to be prime ministers from the beginning.
Guo Shao really needed a prime minister.
After Feng Dao died, there were only three prime ministers left in the court: Wang Pu, Li Gu and Fan Zhi. Fan Zhi often made trouble for the emperor. The prime minister could not be appointed by just anyone, and ordinary people could not control all the officials.
If we want to add a prime minister, someone like Zuo You, who is trusted by the emperor and is familiar with memorials and government affairs in the cabinet, is indeed the best candidate.
Zuo You's eyes became brighter when he thought of this. However, he still looked humble and serious, trying to restrain his excitement. Zuo You thought to himself: If you want to be a prime minister, you must not show your excitement.
Being a noble or a prime minister is something that people dream of. Zuo You thought that he was a minor official a few years ago, but now he was going to be a prime minister in his twenties. He felt a kind of indescribable feeling.
At this time Wang Pu suddenly turned around and said: The emperor is working hard to govern the country, and the country is rising like the sun. If you want to become famous officials in history, this is a good time.
While the foreign ministers were away from Yangde Hall, Li Shanggong got a bowl of Tremella and Red Dates Soup from somewhere. She stirred it with a silver spoon and blew on the soup gently.
Guo Shao was sitting on the couch, deep in thought, and did nothing for the time being. However, he saw from the corner of his eye that Li Shanggong, who was standing behind him, tasted the soup lightly and then brought it up. Her cheeks flushed, and she quietly turned the bowl around and brought it up to Guo Shao, facing the part where she had drunk.
Guo Shao pretended not to know, but raised his eyes to look at her face, and saw that Li Shanggong was pretending to be indifferent but her face was red.
This woman was already in her thirties, but she was still making small moves. However, Guo Shao was not disgusted, but felt very comfortable and relaxed. Although they were a master-servant relationship, they lived together day and night, and it felt like being taken care of by an elder sister at home, which made Guo Shao very happy.
Li Shanggong was not very pretty, and it seemed that the palace maids did not like her very much. However, Guo Shao liked her. In fact, after getting familiar with a woman, her appearance is not particularly important as long as she is not too ugly.
Guo Shao picked it up, looked at the thin and delicate white rim of the bowl, which had a little rouge left, and put it to his lips and took a sip. Then, when he looked at Li Shanggong, she pursed her lips and tried hard not to laugh.
Guo Shao did not point it out. He picked up a pure silver spoon and stirred the bowl twice. He found that the dates inside had been peeled and sieved. This was really not easy and it was done very delicately.
Tremella soup is something Guo Shaoyuan is very familiar with. In later generations, you can drink it on the roadside for three or two yuan a bowl, but here, it is a luxury item and is said to be more expensive than gold.
He immediately said: Tell the people in the palace not to give me this kind of thing in the future. No matter how expensive it is, eating it will not make you gain a few pounds of fat, and the country has many other places to spend money.
Li Shanggong felt a little aggrieved and said: Your Majesty, I will follow your Majesty's orders.
She added: "Although I don't understand what your Majesty is painting, I feel sorry for your hard work." Then she leaned over to look at the picture.
Seeing what she said, Guo Shao almost fell into her trap.
Guo Shao didn't tell her what he was drawing, and just kept looking at the things on the map. It was a map centered on the Hexi Corridor, with a scale marked, but it was not accurate because the information Lu Dosun brought back was not detailed.
To the west is the Western Regions, roughly the Xinjiang area, where there are many forces, the larger ones are the Nine Surnames, Wuhu, Khotan, Tocharians, Western Region Uighurs, Karluk, Tuqishi, etc. There is only a name, Guo Shao has never seen them, basically don't know what kind of people they are, only Uighurs he has some idea, the early Tang Dynasty threatened the Tang Dynasty, and the Uighur Khanate is a tribe.
The Hexi Corridor is the passage from the Western Regions to Longyou and other places. It is also the most prosperous area with lush grass and abundant grains. There are mountains on the north and south sides. There are few people in the desert in the north. There are Qilian Mountains in the south. To the south of Qilian Mountains, there are the Tibetan Achai tribe in the west and the Tuosima tribe in the east.
The Hexi Corridor was populated by Han people, thanks to the expansion of military settlements that began during the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty. However, the Han regime only occupied the western Guasha area, namely the Guiyi Army. The central area was occupied by the Uighurs, called Ganzhou Uighurs; the western Liangzhou was controlled by the Zhebu clan of the Six Valleys of the Tubo tribe.
The corridor goes eastwards into Wushaoling, which is Longyou, the area shaped like the Yellow River.
The western part of Longyou had been completely lost by the Central Plains dynasty, and the Tubo Tosima tribe and the Dangxiang were active there. Only the Lingzhou Shuofang Jiedushi in the north occupied the Yinchuan Plain in the west.
Further east, the south is Guanzhong, the territory of the Great Zhou. To the north is Xiazhou and other places, the territory of the Li family of the Dangxiang Tuoba clan. Further north is the Dongtao area in the south of Yinshan Mountain, entering the territory of the Liao Kingdom.
A lot of the information was sketchy, but Guo Shao at least filled in the blanks in the western part of the map.
Now he could at least roughly understand what was happening to the west of his country. It was a mess.
In addition to the various barbarian tribes with complex intertwined forces, even the northwestern vassal states were in a semi-independent state. For example, the Zhe family in Guanzhong and the Feng family in Lingzhou were in a semi-independent state. It was difficult to say whether they obeyed the imperial edict or not as the emperor was far away. In any case, they nominally accepted official positions granted by the court. Only Wang Jing and his son in Qinzhou, although also vassal states, had fought side by side with Guo Shao and were vassal states that strongly supported Guo Shao's regime.
Alas, Guo Shao threw the brush casually on the inkstone and rubbed his temple.
Li Shanggong hurriedly said: Your Majesty, let me massage you.
"Hmm," Guo Shao grunted and closed his eyes.
Not only are the forces complex, but the relationships are also very complicated. Guo Shao thought for a long time and finally caught two threads from this mess: his temporary goal for the northwest.
1. Expand the war horses.
Second, prevent rebellion in the west and contain the country’s military power at a critical moment.
He thought along these two goals and soon thought of the land of Xiazhou, the foundation of the Western Xia Dynasty.
Guo Shao opened his eyes and remembered the files Wang Pu had presented to him on Xiazhou and other four states, so he looked them up on the table. He knew the general location, which was probably the area south of Ordos in the southern part of the Yellow River, which might have plains, plateaus, hills, gullies and other terrain.
This land must be a huge hidden danger. In history, both the Northern Song Dynasty and the Liao Dynasty could not do anything about it. It was hanging over Guanzhong and posed a great threat to the Great Zhou Dynasty.
Guo Shao decided to learn as much as possible about the Xiazhou Dangxiang area before making a decision.