Chapter 11 Emperor Wen cultivated "his own people" and created a new team for the imperial court

In addition to dealing with "outsiders" issues such as heroes and princes and kings, Liu Heng also has to vigorously cultivate his own wings.This is a compulsory course for almost all rulers, not to mention for Liu Heng, who has ambitions and ideals, and hopes to implement the New Deal, his purpose of cultivating talents is nothing more than two points. The first thing is to strengthen your position.Liu Heng can't count on the hero group and princes and kings all his life, relying on them to protect his own interests.Those people have a lot of small plans, and Liu Heng can't do anything if he is subject to their words for a long time.

The second is to train talents and solicit opinions for the implementation of the New Deal in the future.As soon as Liu Heng took the throne, he showed his intention to implement the New Deal, especially in dealing with the Kingdom issue.Liu Heng especially wanted to take this issue seriously, because he himself had been a prince and king and knew very well about local affairs.In addition, Liu Heng has extensive contact with the forces of princes and kings, so he naturally has a sense of superiority in solving the kingdom's problems. Liu Heng mainly did three things in consolidating and cultivating his own power.

Firstly, on the eighth day of October, Liu Heng sent his uncle, chariot general Bo Zhao, to Daiguo to pick up Liu Heng's biological mother, Mrs. Bo, and made her the Queen Mother, and made Bo Zhao the Marquis of Zhi in December. Liu Heng had just established his foothold in Chang'an, and looking around, he had no relatives except his uncle. Although Zhang Wu and Song Chang were caring, they couldn't talk about everything.Liu Heng needed the Empress Dowager Bo to advise him later, and the establishment of the Empress Dowager marked the further improvement of the central system and accelerated the stability of the entire regime. In this regard, Liu Heng can be said to have excellent vision.

Second, after Liu Heng ascended the throne, he rewarded the heroes of the country. The reason why Liu Heng was able to become emperor smoothly was due to the contributions of Song Chang, Zhang Wu and other seven people who followed him from Daiguo to Chang'an, especially Song Chang.At the same time, Liu Heng also wants to cultivate a team of his own, and these seven people are almost ready-made, and they can be as they were in Daiguo before.So Liu Heng issued an edict and said: "When the ministers calmed down Zhulu to welcome me into Beijing, I was very worried at first, and the ministers also blocked me. Only Lieutenant Song Chang told me not to doubt, which made me not lose the opportunity to be emperor. Before that, I Song Chang has been appointed as General Wei to lead the Northern and Southern armies, and now he will be named Zhuang Wuhou. The remaining six people will also be named Jiuqing level officials."

Among the important ministers like Jiuqing, two-thirds are from the original team of Dai Guo. In addition, Song Chang was granted the title of Marquis. Emperor Wen Liu Heng can be said to have fully supported the power he originally cultivated. Thanks for your kindness, I will definitely serve Liu Heng better. Ling Zhilong quoted Dong Fen's comment in "Historical Records Commentary", saying that Liu Heng first conferred the feudal lords and members of the heroic group, and then conferred the titles of the Dai Guo people, which shows that Liu Heng is not partial.Although Liu Heng is not a bad person, such an over-interpretation and putting gold on Liu Heng's face really makes people wonder whether Ling Zhilong is "advanced black".

If Liu Heng rewarded Song Chang and Zhang Wu first, then it would be no wonder that the heroes and elders would not be noisy; at the same time, rewarding these seven people later is actually a disguised protection for them, otherwise, once these seven people become the envy of the heroes Object, that must not end well. Liu Heng's third measure to train cadres is to order the selection of talents across the country. When Liu Heng came to the throne, the world was initially established, so what is urgently needed is someone who can rule the world immediately, not someone who can rule the world immediately.But the problem is that he himself was supported by this group of generals, most of them are big bosses in the court, and the children of the hero group also rely on their father and brother's military merits and support to be domineering.Therefore, Liu Heng hopes that by selecting new talents, especially those who are talented but have no background and no financial resources, such as the great talent Jia Yi, in order to cultivate a force in the court that can compete with the group of heroes.

Of course, the disadvantages of doing so are also obvious.It is easy for the children of poor families to be blindly loyal to the emperor when they are rewarded. Liu Heng's fourth measure to consolidate his power is to appease and reward many veterans of Liu Bang's period. Liu Heng's move seemed to have no reason, but he couldn't figure out what kind of medicine he was selling in the gourd, but it actually had a deep meaning.Liu Heng realized that long-distance thirst cannot be quenched. Instead of cultivating new forces for long-term investment, it is better to first use those old ministers who did not oppose him and did not pose a threat to his own interests. After all, veterans have rich political experience and are ready-made. Talents.

Liu Heng arranged it like this: 1. For the sixty-eight princes who followed Gaodi Liu Bang into Bashu and Hanzhong, each of them increased the fiefdom by 300 households; 2. Ten people including Shouzun (name, surname missing) of Yingchuan County, who were high officials with more than 2,000 shi in Liu Bang's period and were not named marquises, will each increase the food town of 600 households; 3. Ten people including Shen Tujia, governor of Huaiyang County, added 500 households to the land fief; 4. Ten people including Wei Weizu (name Zu, surname missing) were added to enfeoff 400 households.

Liu Heng is very good at wooing veterans.The veterans have already been hit hard by the Zhulu Rebellion, especially the sixty-eight princes who were rewarded by Liu Heng's first reward. Most of these people can live to the time of Liu Heng's administration, and most of them are already in their dying years, and their political influence is almost Disappeared.Now that Liu Heng rewarded them, it was like a pie falling from the sky. The old men took advantage of others, so naturally they had to use their spare heat to tell the public good things about Liu Heng. And since then, most of these veteran officials will support Liu Heng from the bottom of their hearts: These people are all veterans who followed Liu Bang to fight the world, and they all have the characteristics of a gambler.They bet on Liu Bang back then just to gain benefits, and they won the bet.And now Liu Heng is doing the opposite, letting these people know that they can share benefits from him, they will naturally choose to support Liu Heng, and have a kind of trust in Liu Heng and his New Deal.

Political games are gambling, and Liu Heng has accurately grasped the mentality of these old gamblers.At the same time, Liu Heng won people's hearts and consolidated his rule by widely spreading favors. Compared with the atrocities and high-pressure policies of Liu Bang's era, it is an improvement. In the previous article, the author summarized how Liu Heng skillfully disintegrated the "hero-lords and kings' interest alliance group" by distributing benefits, and also summarized Liu Heng's methods of cultivating his own forces. These methods all showed Liu Heng's extremely high political sensitivity , It also reflects Liu Heng's political enthusiasm.

Liu Heng's enthusiasm for politics is often overlooked by historians.Everyone thinks that what Liu Heng emphasizes is "governance by doing nothing", and that "governance by doing nothing" is the practice of Taoism, and Taoism emphasizes "keeping quiet", so Liu Heng should be more indifferent in his attitude towards secular affairs such as politics. .Even Ma Qian of Taishi Company failed to see through this point, so he praised Liu Heng's weak tendency in governing in "Historical Records". In essence, what Taoism emphasizes is "doing nothing without doing nothing", requiring rulers to follow the laws of nature to govern the country, rather than doing nothing.Liu Heng's extremely high enthusiasm in politics has prompted him to think more about how to deal with government affairs than the previous rulers.Liu Heng can deal with the five forces of heroes, princes and kings, elders, old ministers of the country, and relatives of the mother's family with ease. At least he can take care of all aspects, which shows his high quality as a great statesman. Liu Heng is between various forces, but he never favors any party, but pursues a relatively fair distribution of interests.There will be no contradictions in fairness, which is consistent with governance by doing nothing. Only by following the law of interest distribution can the fairness of interest distribution be maximized.Therefore, governance by doing nothing does not contradict Liu Heng's political enthusiasm. Many of Liu Heng's above-mentioned actions are mainly for the heroes, veterans, princes and powerful officials. So, has Liu Heng implemented any measures to reassure the common people and build their confidence in him? Have. First of all, as mentioned above, at the beginning of his accession to the throne, the common people were allowed to gather and drink for five days to win people's hearts and appease the people. Secondly, Liu Heng ordered the imperial servant (in charge of the emperor's vehicles and horses) to abolish the number of horses in the imperial stables.He has no place to use so many horses, so he can't just ride them one by one boringly, and simply add the extra horses to the post station, which can also show that Liu Heng is not greedy for pleasure in front of the common people.This essentially catered to the common people's expectations for a monarch who worked hard to rule after the Zhulu Rebellion. Liu Heng needed the support of the grassroots, so he naturally had to conform to public opinion and show determination to implement the New Deal and straighten out the government. Thirdly, in November of the second year of the Yuan Dynasty (178 BC), Liu Heng abolished the new guard force that General Wei Song Chang had added to himself. The tiger talisman of the army and the bamboo talisman to verify the identity of the messenger. The former is nothing more than showing a kind of self-confidence and generosity to the common people.Reducing guards means reducing defenses, which expresses Liu Heng's confidence and trust in the common people and ministers.This is in stark contrast to Qin Shihuang: Yingzheng was huddled before and after his trip, and there were still many empty chariots, and he never forgot to protect his own safety; while Liu Heng was generous and confident, and dared to be transparent about his activities. Liu Heng's last action was to ensure the perfection of the national defense system.The army in the Qin and Han Dynasties could not obey someone's mobilization at will. If you want to mobilize the army, you need to combine half of the emperor's tiger talisman with the other half held by the army commander.The same is true for the bamboo emissary talisman, half of which is with the emperor and half with the prefect of the county or the prime minister of the kingdom, which is used to verify the authenticity of the envoy's identity.Checking the talisman of the prefecture and state is tantamount to a self-examination of the national defense system. This is also to let the common people see that the national defense is stable and reliable, and to make people feel at ease about the country. Throughout the long history of ancient China, all New Deals are based on a combination of many beliefs.This includes the self-confidence of the rulers, the people's confidence in the New Deal, the people's confidence in the government, and so on.Liu Heng is well versed in these principles. At the beginning of his ascension to the throne, whether it was to appease the old officials, enfeoff the princes, reward the heroes, and stabilize the people's hearts, or take measures to stabilize the Nanyue Kingdom, establish a queen, establish a prince, and transform the conflict between the kingdom and the central government, he was establishing himself. prestige to build those confidences.

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