Wang Shanxi, as a retired army major general and former deputy director of the Department of Military Intelligence, his greatest contribution is not to say how many meritorious contributions he has made in the field of military intelligence, but to discover and explore the route to Australia.

Since Wang Shanxi discovered Australia, he was made a baron and promoted to brigadier general.

Later, Wang Shanxi, as an active army brigadier general, continued to lead the exploration fleet to explore the ocean, although it is a bit nonsense to let a commodore explore the ocean and call him a navigator, but the reality is so.

Wang Shanxi's position in the Military Intelligence Department is just a temporary post, and his own job has always been to explore the ocean!

After finding Australia, he led the exploration fleet to explore Australia twice, the first time he successfully circled Australia and found Tasmania, and the second time he found the New Zealand Islands.

In addition, he led the fleet to continue to explore the depths of the Pacific Ocean, discovering many islands in the Pacific Ocean, visiting North and South America, and entering the Atlantic Ocean through Cape Horn.

At present, the empire has discovered many islands in the Pacific Ocean and the South Pacific, which are basically discovered by the exploration fleet led by him, and the above-mentioned islands are all thrown down by Wang Shanxi without exception The stone tablet of the territory of the Tang Empire, all of the above-mentioned islands, although most of them are not actually controlled, but they are all included in the territory of the Tang Empire.

After the last exploration voyage, Wang Shanxi fell ill, and although he had no worries about his life, he was no longer suitable to continue sailing at sea, and instead joined the Military Intelligence Department, but only on a temporary basis.

In view of his merits, he was promoted to major general of the army, made a viscount.

A year ago, he was officially retired from active duty

For such a person, there is naturally no one who has any opinions on being awarded the title of viscount, but it is beyond many people's expectations that he will first receive the title of territory.

It's just that there is not much meaning here, mainly because Li Xuan has paid more attention to maritime exploration before, not only Wang Shanxi, but also several other outstanding navigators in the empire, Li Xuan has always paid attention to it.

When I was choosing someone, I just remembered Wang Shanxi, and learned that Wang Shanxi's condition was already relatively serious, and he should not have a few years to live.

Therefore, Li Xuan decided to take Wang Shanxi as the first batch of nobles to grant fiefdoms.

In addition to Wang Shanxi, there were four other people who were also granted territories, but the remaining four were all barons, one of them was awarded the title of Dongsu County (eastern Sumatra) of Sumatra Island in Banten Province, one was awarded the title of Zhongshan County of Ryukyu Province, one was awarded the title of Mian Lao County of Luzon Province, and one was awarded the Ezo Prefecture of Fuso Islands.

The above five people, whether it is Wang Shanxi or the other four barons, the territories they have been awarded have the same nature, they are all overseas territories, and none of them have been awarded local territories, even if it is the bitter cold land of Northeast Province, no one can be sealed, let alone the prosperous land of the Central Plains in China.

The domestic mainland, especially the areas currently occupied, Li Xuan did not intend to divide them among the nobles, because places such as Hefeng Province and Northeast Province were too important.

This place in Hefeng Province, in fact, is the Hetao area and the Fengzhou River area, since ancient times it has been a battleground for the Central Plains Dynasty and nomads.

As for the Northeast Province, because of the geographical location, it is not too important, but this place is also an important part of the empire in Li Xuan's positioning, and it cannot be easily divided, and there is another reason that this broken place is currently too bitter and cold, you must know that the Northeast Province of the Tang Empire is not the three northeastern provinces of the later generations.

The northeast province of the Tang Empire, its territory is north of the Heilongjiang River, east of the Ussuri River, east of Lake Belga, these broken places, there are few people now, a huge northeast province, the total population is only 200,000!

If you really want to divide the past, then it is not a separation, but a distribution!

The other overseas territories have been occupied by the empire for many years, and they are also places of immigration for many years, and after years of immigration and development, they are already more suitable for survival and residence, and now there are steam engine passenger ships coming and going, so this distance is not too far.

At present, these places are actually relatively good.

In addition, the fiefs of the above five people, the fiefs they received were also located by Li Xuan himself, and a large amount of land was also given to each of them, of course, the land they were given were undeveloped barren mountains and forests, or they were still in the hands of the natives, and in nature, they belonged to the local official land.

As for the land that the immigrants have developed, it is the land of other immigrants, and if you want to deprive them of their land, you have to ask them if they have the swords and guns in their hands to agree!

Although it is said that the land of immigrants is distributed free of charge by the government, in fact, in overseas territories, the free distribution also depends on the situation, and only a very small part of it is the land that the government has prepared and given free distribution, in fact, more immigrants need to take the land themselves with knives and guns.

The land that people exchanged for their lives, your government took it back and gave it to the nobles, and those immigrants had to turn the sky upside down, maybe the local militia forces would have to riot~ Riot.

The separation of these five people is also an attempt made by Li Xuan, and it is experimental in many ways.

At the same time, he also hoped that this nobleman who had obtained a fief could give a good start to the subsequent nobles and develop their respective territories.

Although they do not have the administrative power of the fiefdom, as the local lords, and they themselves are the elite of the empire, it is impossible to say that they will not bring influence to the local government, this kind of thing is unavoidable.

Therefore, although they cannot directly participate in the administration, they can certainly influence the affairs of the territory by exerting influence.

Then, they also received a large amount of land, such as Wang Shanxi, he was given the title of Banten State, which is the entire Banten Island, and the land he was given was also very terrifying, occupying more than one-twentieth of the total area of Banten Island.

How to say it, Li Xuan gave Wang Shanxi all the land on Banten Island that the Tang Dynasty government had not yet actually controlled and was still under the control of the local natives.

In the future, these lands will be the private land of Wang Shanxi's family, the kind with title deeds.

In addition, many of the nobles of the empire were not actually hereditary, either reduced to hereditary titles or the lowest barons, and directly cut down after death.

And this non-hereditary system, of course, can control the number of nobles and maintain the renewal of the aristocratic group, but this also raises another problem, that is, after the death of the nobleman without hereditary authority, what to do with his fief?

In this regard, Li Xuan also made certain adjustments to the existing aristocratic system, and appropriately relaxed the conditions for reducing the hereditary rank!

Supplementary provisions have been drawn up to provide for a number of succession systems.

First of all, for the hereditary system, Li Xuan once again made it clear that under no circumstances will the hereditary title above the baron be granted, which is a permanent precedent.

The highest hereditary system is the three generations of the special grace to the baron, the hereditary baronial title after the three generations, and the second class is the ordinary hereditary hereditary to the baron and then the hereditary barony.

Any of the above two types is hereditary after the reduction of hereditary status to the hereditary after the baron, and it is also the only title in the Tang Empire that can be truly hereditary.

Then there is the ordinary hereditary reduction, which is reduced to the baron, and then added to the lord, that is, the reduction to the lord and the reduction of the lord.

After the lord cut the title, the fief was recovered, but the land originally given was not recovered.

Because the fief is a fief, this can be divided into the tax of the fief, but the land given is treated according to normal private property, and since it is private property, there is no reason to take it back.

In addition, these lands can also be bought and sold freely, and if Wang Shanxi wants, in fact, he can sell the large amount of land that has been sealed up now.

But of course, no one wants to do this kind of thing.

In fact, when Wang Shanxi was first entitled, he made a family rule, Banten Island is the place where the Wang family settles down, and future generations are not allowed to sell the land, and he has already made a will, and after his death, all the wealth of the family, including the massive land that occupies more than one-tenth of the area of Sultan Island, will be inherited by the prince alone.

And this inheritance system is a royal family rule, and future generations must abide by it!

Leaving all wealth, especially land, to the heirs, is also the uniform practice of many nobles and even ordinary gentry, in order to maintain the prosperity of the family, not to say that after several generations of continuous separation, the family will not have much wealth, and in the end, the heirs may only have empty titles of nobility, but not even a manor to live in.

This was to ensure that his heirs had sufficient financial resources to maintain the dignity of the nobility.

Wang Shanxi's doing this naturally makes sense, because their royal family will coexist with the empire for a long time in the foreseeable future, because Wang Shanxi also won a special honor before being divided, that is, his viscount title, after being reduced to a lord, the lord son can continue to inherit the lord title after passing the official assessment, and in this way, each generation of lord and son can continue to inherit the lord title after passing the assessment.

This is a small opening that Li Xuan has given to the hereditary inheritance.

And this small opening can be closed at any time, and it has great flexibility, because when the time comes, the assessment will not pass, in fact, it is the emperor's words, the emperor has approved, then naturally you can pass, the emperor does not want to see you, so naturally you can't pass.