Chapter 55: Governing the country is governing officials

When Li Zhen woke up, it was already five days later (it started when Cheng Chuliang and Fang Yiai were having a heart-to-heart talk).

Situ Chen had already left three days ago. When he came, he brought only one-third of the fleet, but when he returned, he brought a full fleet - this entire fleet can be said to be a typical mixed fleet, one-third of which was the Dagang warships he brought himself, the other third was the Coconut Port Fleet of Linfa, and one-third were the Quanzhou fleet brought by Cheng Chuliang. In addition to countless cargo ships and merchant ships, there were five or six hundred ships of all sizes, spreading on the sea, covering almost the entire sea area.

There are a considerable majority of so many ships transported prisoners. Even some of the warships in the escort fleet are filled with prisoners. There are nearly 10,000 prisoners who are sentenced to death alone, and the rest are all full of evil people. Moreover, these are only the first batch, and even the prisoners in Coconut Port are not transported completely. As for prisoners in other cities, they have to wait for the second and third batches of fleets to transport.

"I've been in a coma for so long, so I'm really embarrassed." Li Zhen leaned on the bed and sang bitterly while eating the food fed by the maid: "It seems that this inspection should not be carried out."

What Li Zhen has been obsessed with until now is his great cause of inspection. He originally planned to take advantage of this period to rectify everything in Nanyang, but now he is sick like this - it is not a problem, just cure it. The problem is that the news of his illness and dying must be transmitted back to Chang'an. Once Li Shimin knows, he will definitely summon himself to return to Chang'an, and the inspection mission will definitely be interrupted.

"Oh my Highness, why are you still thinking about patroling? Don't you see how sick you are?" Fang Yiai next to him suddenly cried: "You just calm down my mind. Do you know how serious you are this time? When we found out that you almost didn't breathe, Dr. Shirago almost didn't rescue you... You are still thinking about patroling Nanyang. If you don't think about yourself, do you also want to think about us subordinates? Think about it, if you have anything to do, what will we have to face? I'm afraid I won't have to wait for the imperial court to come down, and I'll commit suicide and bury you for you."

"Is it that serious?" Li Zhen chuckled after hearing this, "It's just a severe cold. With the white bird here, how can I get into trouble? His medical skills are not inferior to those of the prince consort and the miracle doctor Sun."

"Is it that serious? Please remove the word "Do" for me? You don't know how urgent the situation was at that time. Bai Niao finally used his ancestral heart protection pill to give you a breath, and finally took this opportunity to save you... Hi, why would I tell you this? Anyway, your body is there, so don't think about patrolling, so you can stay here honestly. Don't think about going out of this door before your illness is cured. After your illness is cured, I will immediately send you back to Yuezhou - what is your highness? You are just an irregular time bomb, I am afraid of you." Fang Yiai also figured it out. The most important thing now is to send Li Zhen back. It is useless to say that nonsense to him. Now he must be tough, otherwise Tian Tian knows what Li Zhen will do.

"But this time..."

Before Li Zhen could finish his words, he was interrupted by Fang Yiai: "Oh my Highness, just say less. Didn't you hear how dry and hoarse your voice is? I know what you are worried about, but you have to give us a chance to perform, right? How did you know that without your care, there would be problems with our defense change this time?

Don't worry, everyone has been practicing in their respective places for so many years, and they have already had the ability to dominate the country. Isn't it just a change of defense? Even if you are not here, we will not have any major problems - anyway, you will be on an expedition at most one year, and you will still come here again. Even if there are any problems at that time, you can make timely adjustments. What are you worried about?"

"What he said makes sense, maybe it's because I care about it." The situation between Lingnan and Nanyang took Li Zhen to work hard to build it. During this period, he encountered countless difficulties. It is not an exaggeration to say that it was his most important effort. Of course, he did not want to leave any flaws here, so he wanted to adjust his work in Nanyang before leaving.

But now that I think about it carefully, I have already experienced so many top talents under my command in these years and have accumulated enough experience. They know what to do when they arrive in a new place. How can they worry about it? They are simply a mystery to the authorities.

"That's right... Let me talk about your highness, you are so thoughtful. You have bought the Nanyang officialdom at one time." Fang Yiai said with a little resentment: "If you don't say anything else, just say that our Luzon Protectorate has been broken up by you. There is no one who can use it when you go to a new place, and the other people are almost the same. In this way, who can do anything when you go to a new place?"

This is the only thing Fang Yiai is dissatisfied with Li Zhen. It is correct to say that Li Zhen’s method is correct, because he is very clear about the court’s rules of doing things - for example, when a prefecture or a governor’s term expires, the court will generally only transfer himself and his rank officials, but the minor officials under his command will generally not move. After the new governor is transferred, most of them will continue to use these minor officials in order to maintain stability.

As time goes by, the prestige of minor officials in the local area is getting higher and higher. Some good officials are fine, at most they will form clans or aristocratic families. However, those evil officials are rampant and bully good people, and those who suffer will be the people.

Taizu said that governing the country is governing officials. As long as grassroots civil servants are managed well and as long as the grassroots level does not cause chaos, the upper-level officials are actually not corrupt even if they are corrupt.

But that's it, the Tang Dynasty now has a territory of more than 20 million square kilometers (now Asia is actually only three major countries, the Tang Dynasty, the Western Turks and the Dashi, among which the Tang Dynasty monopolizes the entire East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Northeast Asia and some North Asia, and 20 million are still less than 20 million). There are three or four hundred local prefectures alone, and more than 1,500 counties, with at least two hundred officials in each county, and then the personnel of the prefectures... and then the major governor's offices outside Shanghai, this is simply an astronomical number.
Chapter completed!