In the first year of Zhongxiang in the Great Song Dynasty, 1096 in the Gregorian calendar, it was an eventful autumn as the old saying goes. The first year of the newly changed era name has not yet passed, first the Empress Dowager Gao died, Sanqi has just passed, and Emperor Zhao Hao has also hung up. The mother and son are heart-to-heart, flesh and blood, and they went to another world on their toes.

If the death of the Queen Mother and the Emperor alone is not much of a deal, the next development is more interesting. The emperor's only son was less than a year old and could not take on the heavy responsibility of managing the country, and Empress Pang was well aware of the righteousness and did not want the court to fall into the situation of suspicion of the lord and the young country, so she decided to set up a new monarch.

After the unanimous election of the courtiers, Zhao Fu, the king of Qi, who was in the prime of life, noble-born, and had made many military exploits, became the best choice, and King Liang, who was far away in Yangzi Town, did not raise any objections. At the end of November, the new emperor officially ascended the throne in the imperial city of Kaifeng, and changed the era name to Zhongxing.

The old emperor's bones are not cold, and the new emperor is in a hurry to ascend the throne, will it seem too anxious? Hong Tao also asked the eldest princess like this, but she was deeply despised again.

According to the laws of the ancient empire, the new emperor must ascend the throne before the funeral of the old emperor is completed, and only then can he ask for the old emperor's name, designate the funeral team, and many other matters. Otherwise, no one is in charge, who will do the old emperor's funeral affairs to determine honor and disgrace.

In fact, at this time, the funeral was no longer concerned by many courtiers, from the central to the local, thousands of officials in the Great Song Dynasty were waiting for the new emperor to take office.

When new emperors ascended the throne in successive dynasties, the first thing they did was often to adjust the political structure and redistribute rights and interests. The ministers who have been following the new emperor must have a prosperous man, several more, and one or two must enter the center of the court to take power, otherwise the throne will not be stable.

The power of the court has changed, and even the local pattern has to change with it. The emerging forces want to seize power, the original forces want to protect themselves, and all kinds of open or dark confrontations can't be avoided, and whoever catches up is unlucky.

Everyone wants to judge the future direction of the wind through the first batch of appointments of the new emperor, and it is not too late to find a rough leg to change the court.

If you really can't find a way to hold your thick legs, it doesn't matter, it is also a good way to find the side that is about to lose power and step on it, so as to make a position to the emperor.

However, Zhao Maid's first fire was a little not too prosperous, and only one of his own people was appointed to enter the center. Wang Xu, the position is particularly strange, the regent.

This position originated very early, from the Zhou Dynasty, and its duty was to act in place of the emperor. Generally, when the emperor is on an expedition, seriously ill, unable to govern, and does not have a prince of the right age to oversee the country, he entrusts a particularly trusted and respected minister to take care of the government and make a transition.

But after the Han Dynasty, this position and title were extinct, because most regents did not want to let go after they got the power, and tried their best to become emperors themselves, which ended in civil strife in the country, which was very harmful.

Later dynasties generally replaced the regent with the empress and empress dowager. Although there are not a few relatives who usurp power, there is a little family relationship, which is better than putting the imperial power in the hands of pure outsiders.

Now that Zhao Maid has resumed this position again, neither the emperor has gone on an expedition, is seriously ill, nor is the emperor young, so this arrangement makes people have to worry about King Liang's conduct.

Although there was controversy about this matter, it did not cause any big turmoil in the court. The reason is very simple, as long as they are not too blind and too deaf courtiers, they all understand in their hearts that the reason why King Qi can ascend the throne, the reason why the queen will take the initiative to let Xian, and the reason why Zhang Dian and Zhang Ji will strongly support it are all closely related to King Liang.

With this credit, it is not too much to be a regent. If he wants to usurp the throne, he doesn't have to wait so many years, Emperor Shenzong can play this game as soon as he dies, and it will be easier for the regent to supervise the country at that time.

This judgment was soon confirmed, and King Liang accepted the position of regent, but did not enter Beijing to sit in the center, but only sent a few adopted children to the new emperor's side, and set up a yamen called the Prime Minister's Office, which was dedicated to giving advice to the emperor and did not directly interfere in court affairs.

The only newly appointed official was Kaifeng Fu Yin, a young man in his twenties named Wang Zhong. It is said that he used to serve as an inspector in Huangzhou, and his other resumes are blank.

No one knows what Wang Zhong is good at, but no one objects. Kaifeng Mansion Yin has always been the emperor's confidant, and the selection criteria are not entirely based on political performance and prestige.

Since this person is an official in Huangzhou, he thinks that he is the regent's confidant, and he should be quite familiar with the emperor, and he is also a minister of the hidden mansion. It is very reasonable for a henchman to sit in Kaifeng Mansion, don't be serious about the age of the resume, you can't let the emperor be a bare-bones commander, and you can't even control the capital.

In this way, the emperor is equivalent to not mixing any of his own people in the court, and everyone is still in their own place. There is no need to rush to change the court, nor do you need to find an unlucky person to step on it, so that the uneasy courtiers can relax a little.

Why is it said that a little heart can't be let go of it all? It really can't, because King Liang ...... No, it should be called the regent now. Although he was in Yangzi Town, the soldiers arrived in Kaifeng City.

In the month or so before and after the enthronement ceremony, several new armies came one after another from Yangzi Town, Sichuan-Shaanxi Fourth Road, and the Special Administrative Region, all of which took the emperor's decree and the regent's edict to forcibly take over the Kaifeng city defense and the palace garrison, and even the palace officials and guards were abolished.

If only the emperor's courtiers and the Privy Council can still be hard topped, but coupled with the regent's edict, even if the Privy Council orders it, the generals of the forbidden army will not dare to implement it, and they will take it over, it really can't be beaten.

Most of the forbidden troops originally stationed near Kaifeng also received orders from the Privy Council to go to Liangzhou, Lanzhou, Lizhou, Yangzhou, and Daimyofu to accept the selection of new troops.

The selected ones will continue to stay in the local area and be trained by the new army, and the previous army establishment will be abolished, and after the training is completed, it will be mixed according to the new number, and the Great Song Forbidden Army will be re-formed.

According to information coming out of the Privy Council, all this was meant by the regent. In the future, the Great Song Dynasty will only have 300,000 forbidden troops and 100,000 reserves. Those who have been eliminated from the forbidden army and the enslavement service may voluntarily choose to join the engineering corps or return to their hometowns after being disarmed.

Is 400,000 troops enough to guard the border and the country's big cities? On this issue, everyone thinks that no one can understand better than King Liang, since he said it, it should be Cheng.

It is also a good thing for the state to raise fewer soldiers, so that the financial investment can be greatly reduced, and the remaining money can be used for anything, or simply reduce taxes and allow the people to cultivate and recuperate.

However, it seems a bit intriguing to hand over the garrison work of the capital and the imperial palace to the new army, knowing that the new army will not listen to anyone, and no one will be able to command it. As soon as the new emperor ascended the throne, he was completely controlled by King Liang, and he didn't have the slightest strength to resist, is it a good thing?

It's too late for a good thing, and now no one who says it doesn't count. Watching groups of new army soldiers enter the city in a neat line, I have to endure any opinions. These are all tiger and wolf soldiers who have slaughtered the city in Western Xia, and whoever dares to disobey orders will have to be turned into air-dried meat on a wooden pole.

The regent is not too reasonable, and whoever he wants to kill must die. Even if Emperor Shenzong and Wang Anshi and Sima Guang were alive at the beginning, it wasn't that they would kill them, but now only Zhao Maid can control them?

However, after the new army entered the city, there was really no chaos, except for daily drills, they were rarely seen on the streets in ordinary times, and there were no arrogant soldiers and fierce generals who had never happened in the affected places, and they deserved a sentence of strict military discipline.

With all kinds of apprehensions, the first day has arrived. At this time, the emperor spoke out for the second time and issued an edict to inform the people of Kaifeng that due to the funeral of the queen mother and the first emperor, the celebrations of the imperial court this year were all exempt. But there is no restriction on the people to entertain themselves, and there is no need to wear filial piety throughout the country, everything can be done as usual.

Just when many people felt that the new emperor had just ascended the throne and that it was unlikely that there would be another fire before the foundation was unstable. As soon as the Fifteenth Lantern Festival passed, Zhao Maid slapped them heavily in the face.

More than 10 governors of Sichuan-Shaanxi 4th Road and Fuzhou Road jointly signed a petition to the imperial court and applied to become a special zone. The reason is very simple, why can part of the north of Ganliang Road, Yinzhou Road and Qinfeng Road be governed according to the laws of the Special Administrative Region, and we can't do it?

It's not just that it's unfair, but the governors of more than a dozen state capitals have also taken practical actions. They said that as long as it can become a special zone, the local government is willing to raise the tax by another level, and the original lower state will pay the tax of the middle state government.