On May 19 of the fifth year of Longqing, the prince accompanied Gao Pragmatic to return to Beijing to sell his leave.

Facts have proved that when going out for a long journey, it is not only necessary to take two hundred horsemen with you, but also your own identity and status are also very important. Gao Pragmatic returned all the way, thanks to the blessing of Gao Gong, even with up to 200 people, the post stations along the way were respectfully received, and they did not dare to slack off.

Of course, although the post station is willing to do its best, the team is too big to stand up to Gao Shipra, and most post stations can't arrange so many people and horses, so they can only be placed nearby.

But fortunately, the high pragmatic travel of the plate is wrapped enough, every time you go to a post station will take the initiative to pay, and it is also relatively generous, as long as the post station runs errands, not only will not lose money, but also make a small and medium-sized profit, which can be regarded as pulling a lot of passers-by.

Of course, Gao Pragmatic is so generous, not only for a little popularity, but also for the friendship with the post station officials through these means, and then take the spare time to learn from them about the real situation of the post station.

There is a well-known thing in history, that is, in the last years of the Ming Dynasty, the hard-working Emperor Chongzhen ordered the abolition of the original post station system in the country. Li Zicheng, who was originally a post guard in Shaanxi, suddenly lost his job, and he lost his livelihood, and he finally overthrew the Ming Dynasty. In order to save hundreds of thousands of taels of silver, Chongzhen lost the world.

But the course of history has never been so simple, because Chongzhen is actually not the first person to eat crabs. Before him, only Gao Shishi knew, the Ming Dynasty had abolished the post station system at least twice, and the previous Jiajing Emperor and the future Wanli Emperor had been or would do it.

The problem is that both Jiajing and Wanli have cut out surplus grain, and only Chongzhen has cut out Li Zicheng. Why is that? Gao Pragmatic also knew that the post station system cost a lot of money, and it was a large part of the imperial court's expenses, and if the high arch did not fall in the future, he would definitely have to start with the post station system - maybe he was already thinking about it now. Therefore, Gao Pragmatic felt that it was necessary for him to get to the bottom of this matter before returning to Beijing.

To understand the attitude of the Ming emperors towards the local post stations, it is first necessary to understand the operation mode of this system. The truth is, if you just look at it as a simple and modest government-run hotel, you would be very wrong!

Because in the Ming Dynasty, the real post house was actually a kind of luxury official guest house. In addition to the postal and military intelligence transmission purposes that we are usually aware of, it also serves many other functions.

According to Gao Shipra's understanding of the post station staff along the way, according to the regulations at this time, most of the post stations have two or even three courtyards. On the main transportation routes, the imperial court often had post stations for officials, and their living conditions were not even worse than the residences of local magistrates—many of the officials passing by were of higher rank and more power than the local officials, so how could they live poorly?

A Ming Dynasty post station has at least a gate, a drum tower, a middle gate, front and rear halls, left and right wings, a kitchen, a storehouse, a stable, a post house and other facilities. Most standard post houses have 10 upper rooms for officials and 20 ear rooms or wing rooms for errand officers, which can accommodate dozens of guests at the same time.

At the same time, these inns also have their own post houses and offices. Of course, there must be a supporting kitchen and stables, and it must also be equipped with management and service personnel such as grooms, donkey grooms, foot grooms, curators, kufus, bucket levels, housekeepers, and cooks. There must be a chase bunk for them to live in, and even a spare warehouse and a makeshift prison for all kinds of officials.

Therefore, at this time, the post stations of the Ming Dynasty, just like the highway service areas of later generations, were all over the country's transportation routes. We provide free services to "people in the system" nationwide! Its service items are far more comprehensive than the highway service areas of later generations.

The service responsibilities of the Ming Dynasty post station can be divided into three main categories:

First of all, the most basic is the accommodation service, as mentioned above, not only the supporting facilities of the user, but also the supply of all service personnel.

The second is the supply of carriages and horses, taking the situation of the Shaanxi post station that later gave birth to Li Zicheng as an example: Xi'an Post has 27 standing horses, 10 donkeys, a number of cattle pulling carts, and a number of carts. If that's not enough, you can call in hundreds of post guards waiting to give their shoulders. After all, these low-level officials are more able to endure hardships and stand hard work than mules and horses.

Finally, there is the provision of travel expenses, which is probably the most incomprehensible service item for modern people. Officials not only did not spend money on the inn, but they were able to take money from the post station in turn. At this time, many officials went to the post station to stay, and when they left, they had to ask for silver in various names. After all, the post station does not cover all areas, and the errand clerks eat, drink, and sleep without stopping for a moment. If you don't give it, then it is very common for the post guard or even the post man to be beaten.

If it were just a constant blackmail, the station system might not have been the target of several layoffs. But what's worse is that these dotted post stations are not only not operated in a market-oriented way, nor are they supported by state funding. Each post station mainly relied on the local government to directly levy taxes to the people, and used the additional tribute of the local people to feed them!

That is to say, the daily operation and maintenance of the post station are carried out between the grassroots officials and the grassroots people. There is no supervision by the upper and lower levels of government, and there is no conventional market norm. Therefore, in fact, it is necessary to collect more from the people and collect less, and it is the post station officials who have the final say.

In terms of the horses that each inn has to equip. The horses at the inn ate not grass, but grain. As early as the Zhu Yuanzhang period, each horse in the post station needed a local supply of 80 stone of grain per year. However, in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, a horse in Huazhou, Shaanxi Province actually needed 422 stone of grain per year! At that time, one hectare of arable land in Shaanxi could only produce 7 stone of grain. Therefore, every stagecoach needs more than a dozen farmers to earn a year's worth of hard work.

In view of the poor breeding technology of the Ming Dynasty, it was impossible to breed horses to the size of African elephants, so it is impossible to eat more than five times in less than 200 years in more than 100 years. In fact, these overcollected grains were eaten by the "people in the system" and the staff of the post station.

After the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the speed of the collapse of government officials was greatly accelerated. Anyone who has some relationship with the system can open a letter of introduction to the post station to stay and use the carriage and horse. The benefit is not only that it is free, but it is even possible to ask for travel fees from the post station in turn. Therefore, in order to support the increasingly expensive post stations, the officials in the system have no choice but to apportionment more and more expenses to the people. As for the apportionment of more or less, it all depends on the personal conscience of the officials. Among them, there are Yicheng who are honoring their superiors and can accumulate thousands of fortunes in addition to greeting errands.

Anyone with a discerning eye can see that if the post station is not abolished, the peasants who are finally forced to live by the post station will sooner or later rebel.

At that time, in fact, many court officials also saw this problem. During the reign of Emperor Jiajing, the imperial court planned to reduce the size of post stations in the country by 30%-50%, and half of the money and grain saved was used for military expenses.

The idea is actually not bad, but in terms of execution, there are still problems. The local government did reduce the cost of the post station, but the burden on the post station did not decrease. The officials who came and went still ate and drank in the post station, and they also had to use chariots and horses. As a result, the staff of the post stations across the country began to go on strike, or simply abandoned their posts and fled. Since the post station itself also undertakes the function of messaging, the consequences are more serious.

For example, when the Japanese invaded the city of Xinghua in Fujian, the news of 100,000 urgent news was delayed for more than a month before it was delivered to Beijing. As a last resort, the reform was declared a failure five years later, and everything was back on track.

In the Wanli period, Zhang Juzheng had already seized power and began to take the post government. However, he did not impose the reduction rate in terms of savings, but rather limited the privileges of officials. He presided over the promulgation of strict regulations, brought to justice dozens of officials who violated the rules, and demoted and dismissed many officials. It also includes the descendants of Confucius and the imperial relatives.

In addition, Zhang Juzheng did not stipulate a hard target for reducing expenditures, but grasped the key point of "official privileges." It has also directly incorporated the reform of post administration into the assessment content of the top leaders at the provincial level in various localities. This idea is much more correct, and it has successfully reduced the cost of post administration in the country by more than 30%, which is said to have saved nearly one million taels of silver and reduced the huge economic burden for the people.

However, as I said before, Zhang Juzheng's method may have benefits for the country and the people, but forcibly using administrative means to suppress the world's officials, people have no way to run away from politics.

The reason why Gao Pragmatic went deep into the post station to understand the situation was also to carefully find a breakthrough from it - he has always agreed that "politics is the art of compromise", so although coercion does not mean that it will never work, but blindly coercive pressure will definitely not work, you close a door, at least you have to leave a window for people, this truth is similar to the siege of the city in the art of war to "encircle three missing one" - all blocked, it is better to leave a gap as a vent, in case the trapped beast is still fighting, the fish is dead and the net is broken.