【Chapter 815】 Two wings fly together
Don’t underestimate what Cai Yong did. This is the best way to truly start from the source and firmly support Li Li. Influence students in their thoughts. When these students grow up, Li Li will be a god in their hearts that cannot be blasphemed. Supporting and loyalty to Li Li is their inevitable choice.
For everything Cai Yong did in obscurity, perhaps others could not imagine how strong this support Li Li was, but as Li Li, who was reborn, no one could better understand how huge the loyal education started from children and how far-reaching the influence of this kind of loyal education is.
Cai Yong never mentioned these things, and even Cai Yan and others didn't know the real intention of Cai Yong's move. They only regarded the dispute between Cai Yong and Kong Rong as an interesting thing, and saw that Cai Yong's protection of his son-in-law was nothing more.
However, when Li Li learned about this, he was very moved and truly accepted this respectable and lovely father-in-law from the bottom of his heart.
Thinking back then, the reason why he asked Cai Yong to serve as the dean of the Tai Academy was because he did not have a great scholar who could trust and have enough reputation to take on this task. As a result, in the mentality that it was better to use mature things than to use life, he chose his father-in-law Cai Yong to take over the Tai Academy. After all, no matter what, Cai Yong was his father-in-law. Even if he didn't support him, he would not deliberately ruin his reputation and would not do anything that would harm the interests of the Xiliang army.
Even so, Li Li made preparations.
On the surface, Cai Yong was the dean of Tai Academy, in charge of the two institutions, the Academy of Literature and Military Academy, but in fact it was not the case. Cai Yong's Academy of Literature gathered famous scholars from all states and counties in the world, and the families of these famous scholars were all placed in the inner courtyard. The three thousand soldiers were guarded day and night, and there was no general's order to enter and exit. This move was actually a disguised house arrest, forcing these famous scholars to fulfill their duties and dare not do anything that would harm Li Li's reputation and the interests of the Western Liang army.
In addition, Li Ru served as the chief clerk of the college, in charge of the salary payment of all the college's scholars, and in charge of all the expenses of the college. This is equivalent to pinching the throat of Tai Academy. Whether it is a great scholar or a famous scholar, he must eat and dress. All of these are in the hands of Li Ru, and even Cai Yong's salary is no exception.
This is true for the Academy of Literature, and the Military Academy (i.e. the Martial Arts Academy) is more strictly regulated. Li Li personally served as the dean of the Martial Arts Academy. Daily affairs are managed by the great sword master Wang Yue. The chief instructor is Wang Yue’s eldest disciple Shi A, while daily teaching is taught by Huangfu Song, Zhu Ye, Jia Xu, Li Xuan, Guo Jia and Huang Zhong. In addition, the generals in the army will go to the Martial Arts Academy to teach for a few days as long as they have time. Most of the students in the academy are descendants of fallen soldiers. They are absolutely loyal to Li Li because they can grow up in the Martial Arts Academy, which is all given by Li Li.
This is the world-famous Chang'an Tai Academy, divided into two schools of civil and military affairs. It has been four years since its establishment. Last winter, the first batch of 3,000 adult students completed their studies. These students, scholars, were all placed in all counties under the rule of Xiliang, and the students who studied martial arts were arranged in the Xiliang army. All students started from the bottom, scholars were minor officials of county magistrates. Martial students were the chiefs and low-level generals with team leadership. Among them, there were also many talented people with jumping promotions. More than a dozen scholars had already taken the position of county magistrates or county magistrates; and dozens of martial students were promoted to military marquis or military silos, and thirteen were promoted to school lieutenants.
It is no exaggeration to say that these two institutions are completely to consolidate Li Li's supreme status, or these students are the cornerstones of his rule over the prefectures and counties of Xiliang and even the entire world. In a few months, the second batch of students will be completed this year, with more than 5,000 students, and most of them are scholars. Therefore, with this group of scholars scattered to various counties, the shortage of scholars in Xiliang will end. In the future, a large number of civil and military practitioners will be added to the territory of Xiliang every year, so that the territory of Xiliang will not be short of talents due to the large-scale expansion, and can be fully self-sufficient.
In this way, even without the support of the gentry class, Li Li was able to re-cultivate a large number of emerging gentry classes, thereby completely replacing the existence of the old gentry.
Ten or twenty years later, these literati and military generals will surely become the backbone of the Xiliang Army, with their tentacles spread across the states and counties in the world, and recreate a new era. This is the real purpose of Li Li's efforts to establish the Tai Academy without hesitation to spend a lot of money to cultivate talents by himself, just like the Red Anti-Da in later generations, and to be self-reliant. Only in this way can he build an iron-like country, not seeking for thousands of years, but it is absolutely no problem to maintain it for more than a hundred years.
To this day, the scale of Tai Academy has been growing, with the number of students growing from the earliest 3,000 to tens of thousands, and this number is still growing. Most of the new students are from the descendants of the fallen soldiers of the Xiliang Army, as well as outstanding middle and low-level generals recommended and selected by generals from various battalions, as well as the children of civil and military officials under Li Li. The admission threshold for these people is relatively low and the school fees they have to pay is very small, but the children of other gentry and powerful people have to pay a considerable school fees.
Even so, thousands of gentry and powerful men spared no expense to stuff their descendants into Tai Academy, because this is the only formal channel to enter the military and political circles of Xiliang. As for the Chang'an Recruitment Hall, the threshold is not high, but if you want to become an official, you must go through strict assessments and screenings before you can be hired. Therefore, it is extremely rare to jump into the dragon gate, and there are even fewer civil and military officials who can enter Li Li's eyes by becoming an official, and there are not many in a year. Therefore, entering Tai Academy to become an official and become the only way for the gentry and powerful men to intervene in the military and political circles of Xiliang. If they want to be recognized and accepted by Li Li, they still need to show enough sincerity.
It has to be said that to this day, the Xiliang Army and its commander Li Li have become strong enough, and their relationship with the gentry and powerful people has undergone fundamental changes. As early as when Li Li first took over the Xiliang Army and occupied Chang'an City, these gentry and powerful gentry did not take Li Li and his Xiliang army seriously at all. Moreover, the Xiliang treasury was empty at that time, and the money, food and supplies were in short supply.
In order to alleviate the pressure on money and food, Li Li once tried to ease relations with the gentry and gentry, hoping to get their help and overcome the difficulties. Unfortunately, these old gentry and powerful gentry not only did not appreciate it, but instead sat on the wall to watch, waiting to see Li Li and the Xiliang army gradually decline, causing them to roll back to Wuwei County in a mess.
Forced to helplessly, Li Li had to spend a lot of energy to improve the poverty situation in Xiliang. He finally decided to implement the strategy of rest and recuperation, break the army into pieces, let it fend for itself, and develop independently. This is the source of Xiliang's implementation of rest and recuperation, and the fundamental reason why the Xiliang army has made no achievements within two years, and it is also the most difficult period facing Li Li.
Fortunately, the entire army had the Jinwu granary left by Dong Zhuo at the bottom, so it would not collapse completely. It could only be maintained for a while after coordinated use. It was precisely in the face of such a difficult situation that Li Li decided to take out all the millions of stones of grain stored in the Jinwu castle and distribute it to the people of various counties, and used the new grain as seeds to vigorously cultivate and cultivate them. All the cattle, sheep and livestock collected were distributed to the people to farm and feed, and encourage the raising of livestock.
At that time, this decision was undoubtedly a waste of money, and was willing to spend all his money and squandered only the few resources left, which seemed to be put to death. So many gentry and gentry were eager to try and could not wait to take over the land of the Three Auxiliary in Chang'an. Once the people ate all the food and livestock, they would occupy the land and make a comeback, and eventually forced Li Li to compromise, and had to appoint them to take over the counties and counties again to restore their former glory.
However, they never expected that Li Li did not ignore the food and livestock when he distributed it. On the contrary, before distributing the food and livestock, Li Li had formulated a detailed implementation plan, sent tens of thousands of officials to various counties, counties, and even town pavilions for on-site supervision, and taught the people how to cultivate and fertilize deeply. At the same time, county and government soldiers in various places built a large number of canal irrigation facilities to ensure that grains are kept in seeds and harvests, and to avoid droughts to the greatest extent.
Facts have proved that the rest and recuperation strategy is quite successful, effective, and a wise decision with vision. This year is the third year of the rest and recuperation strategy, which means that starting from this autumn, the county and county government offices will collect 30% of the tax (i.e., the 37 tax system). Before that, the Xiliang Prefecture Treasury had not collected any grain within three years, but the Xiliang army exchanged a large amount of grain from the people for a large amount of grain. The Chang'an Prefecture Treasury used a large amount of gold, silver and rare jewelry stored in Meiwu to purchase a large amount of grain from the Central Plains states as the salary expenses of officials and government offices, and stockpiled a certain amount of grain and supplies.
Li Li's journey to the Central Plains was even more rewarding. He raised enough food and grass for the Xiliang army to fight for half a year in one fell swoop, and used various means to obtain hundreds of thousands of stones of food and grass and a large amount of gold and silver from the princes of all sides. These food and money guaranteed the supply of materials for the Sili Battle and laid a solid foundation for the Xiliang army to win the final victory.
The victory of the Battle of Sili played an immeasurable role in Li Li and even the entire situation in Xiliang, with a profound impact.
After this battle, the Xiliang Army not only firmly held the position of the world's most powerful army, but also directly defeated the most powerful existence in the minds of the gentry and powerful people. The powerful princes such as Yuan Shao in Jizhou and Cao Cao in Yanzhou, Lu Bu in Yanzhou, and truly became the most powerful overlords of the many princes in the world. This completely shattered the beautiful vision of many wait-and-see gentry gentry, making them clearly realize the power of Li Li and his commanded Xiliang army, which drove them to actively show goodwill to Li Li and dependent on them, hoping that Li Li would accept them again.
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Chapter completed!