Chapter 335: Rectifying the Storm End
No matter how good the policy is, it needs to be implemented by qualified officials, and the composition of officials within the Han government is complex, most of them are uneducated, halfway monks, and businessmen with a little cultural knowledge. Although the problem of insufficient number of Han officials was solved to a certain extent, with the delay of time and the impact of the doubling of the land area of the Han State, they not only failed to provide assistance for the effective operation of the government, but also directly or indirectly damaged the interests of the country.
The case of Lin Yaxiang and the Yixing Company under his control is a typical example of official corruption and collusion between officials and businessmen, where local officials in Yunzhou violated the laws and regulations formulated by the government, openly and secretly conveyed benefits to relevant personnel, and infringed on the state's public land and taxes.
In the early years of the founding of the country, the new ruling class replaced the old class, which was the most likely period to breed a monopoly of power, and if the ranks of government officials were not rectified at the source, the longer the reform was delayed, the higher the cost and consequences of reform.
There is no good way to clean up the ranks of officials and improve the administrative efficiency of government organs, and in light of the current actual situation of the Han Kingdom, Li Mingyuan decided to start from four aspects.
First, professional intelligence personnel from the Ministry of State Security were dispatched to various localities, prefectures, and counties to conduct investigations, collect evidence of violations and crimes committed by local officials and businessmen, and deal with batches of cases when they were discovered.
Second, a new department of the Department of Integrity was set up within the Inspectorate, with a high administrative rank of deputy minister, directly responsible to the emperor, and specifically responsible for handling cases of official corruption, collusion between officials and businessmen, and crimes in the economic field.
Third, we should speed up the training of professional officials, select and promote college graduates to work in the administrative organs of the central and local governments on the basis of merit, and initially engage in some work of the nature of auxiliary chief officials, share the power of chief officials, and exercise a certain degree of power control over chief officials.
Fourth, in view of the fact that it is unlikely that a major war will break out in South America within 10 years and that the country will be in a period of peace, Li Mingyuan believes that continuing to arrange those officers and soldiers who have a certain degree of cultural attainment and strong executive ability to the grassroots organs of the government can strengthen the government's control over the local grassroots level; although corrupt elements will inevitably appear among the demobilized officers and soldiers, Li Mingyuan believes that after a period of military education and training, Li Mingyuan believes that after a period of military education and training, Li Mingyuan believes that after a period of military education and training, Li Mingyuan believes more. Obedient retired officers are more reliable.
At the beginning of November 1879, after several months of exploration and investigation, the first round of clean-up and rectification work for the state capitals in the Han State began.
Lin Yaxiang and Yixing Company were the first to be arrested and seized, and Lin Yaxiang himself was sentenced to death and confiscated all his personal property because he embezzled a huge amount of national wasteland and repeatedly concealed the major casualties of the companies and plantations under his jurisdiction, and at the same time, more than 100 officials and managers of Yixing Company involved in Lin Yaxiang's case were all arrested, and 80% of the assets under the name of Yixing Company were seized and confiscated. The 6,200 workers who had been illegally employed by Yixing and whose personal liberty had been restricted were reinstated as freedmen and were allowed to receive a portion of Yixing's assets as financial compensation.
As of November 24, 1879, a total of 1,075 officials of all sizes had been arrested and imprisoned, 2,148 merchants and old-style literati had been placed on file for investigation, and the total value of the land, shops, and property involved in the case had been confiscated equivalent to about 10.7 million taels of silver, accounting for about half of the total annual financial revenue of the Han State.
According to the calculation of the Manchu court's fiscal revenue of 30,000 taels of silver during the same period, the total annual financial income of the Han State was 20 million taels of silver, accounting for only one-fifteenth of the Manchu court's income, which was equivalent to the per capita fiscal income, and the per capita financial income of the Han State was only about three times more than that under the Manchu Dynasty. It was four to five times higher than that of the common people under the Manchu Dynasty, and the per capita fiscal income was much higher than on the books.
The stormy internal rectification and the arrest of a large number of officials and businessmen brought a great shock to the local officials and businessmen, who were originally optimistic about the future development prospects of the Han Kingdom because of the victory of the Argentine War and Li Mingyuan's accession to the throne as emperor. I'm going to end up dead.
Frightened by the turmoil of the local officialdom rectification, many businessmen retreated, decided to leave the Han mainland, return to the mainland or Nanyang with the funds earned in the Han country, and become their own rich people, for this part of the people, Li Mingyuan has nothing to say, instructed government officials to check a word, seriously investigate their business experience, but if there is a thing that touches the laws of the country, they will be punished immediately, if the degree of involvement is low or even law-abiding, then one-third of the property must be paid as a tax for appearances, After all, whether Li Mingyuan or the officials and generals under him, they are not generous people, and they have taken enough of the benefits given by the Han State, and if they want to leave, they must spit out some of them.
After the implementation of the policy of leaving the country to pay taxes, about two-fifths of the people changed their minds, reluctant to lose nearly half of their property, and chose to stay, and another group of strong-willed, except for some of them who were arrested for illegal sources of property, a total of 648 businessmen and 215 old-fashioned talents and people left the South American mainland, or went to Nanyang or returned directly to the mainland, and lived a life that they thought was suitable for them.
The composition of domestic immigration in the Han Kingdom was complex, and different categories of people such as ordinary Chinese laborers, ordinary people who fled from famine, and overseas Chinese businessmen came to South America for different purposes, except for most of them to eat a full meal and find a way to live with their families, and there were also some speculative businessmen and ruffians who broke the law and committed crimes in the mainland came to South America in order to get ahead.
In order to manage immigration in a unified manner, the Han government pondered hard and adopted a set of measures and administrative orders to transform those Chinese who had immigrated with bad intentions, from the initial transportation of ships ashore, the government's education and training of immigrants in simple sanitation and local policies and laws of the Han State, to two years of collective labor, participation in the construction of roads and houses in settlements organized by the government, and the end of the two-year labor period, according to the performance of the labor period, the incentive policy of dividing houses and land,
It can be said that after more than 10 years of exploration and improvement, the Han Dynasty's immigration education and reform policy was generally successful, but it was difficult for some Chinese who were stubborn in nature to achieve a complete change under the education and training of external forces, and after surviving the two-year labor period, receiving unified militia training in the settlements, and obtaining official national status, some Chinese who were gang members and local ruffians and hooligans became active again, extorting new immigrants, bribing grassroots officials to run rampant in the villages, and engaging in gambling, usury, and other activities.
It can be said that the old-style gang elements and local ruffians provide a lot of room for government officials to be corrupt and colluding with officials and businessmen, Lin Yaxiang has no official position, just a businessman, why can he win over more than 100 officials in Yunzhou, which is not only the wealth in his hands to play a role, but also the thousands of gangs and ruffians who depend on Yixing Company to survive are also a force that cannot be ignored.
At the beginning of the founding of the country, the Han government issued an administrative order to ban all local gangs, and without the permission of the government, ordinary citizens could not bring home the muskets used for training without permission, and the original gang elements were more strictly forbidden to form gangs and disrupt local security.
There are garrisons and militias to deter the locality, between 1870 and 1874, vigorously and resolutely deal with a group of ruffians, gangsters, the sentence of the sentence, changed to exile to the Congo, after a four-year clean-up period, the social atmosphere in the local area is purified, but with the impact of the Ding Shu famine, the number of Chinese immigrants to the local area skyrocketed, and the energy of the central and local governments was tied up by immigration affairs, so the supervision of the local security environment was relaxed, and the gang elements who newly moved into the country provided space for their activities. This led to the concentrated exposure of the internal, economic, and social security problems of the local government in the second half of 1879.
Taking the opportunity of rectifying the problems of officialdom and business, he even cleaned up all the gangs, ruffians, and thugs involved, and at the same time interrogated the arrested personnel and dug deep into the distribution of gangs hidden in various places. The social landscape of the jurisdiction was completely renewed, in line with the requirements of the new atmosphere of the empire.
Dig out a group of national moths, the new extra official positions have stimulated the enthusiasm of officials at all levels, influenced by traditional culture, there has never been a shortage of people who want to sit in the local area, even if they see some colleagues around them being arrested for corruption, illegal and other issues, but this does not stop the ambition of other officials to be promoted, the Han country is vast and sparsely populated, and there is no shortage of land and wealth to meet the needs of life when government officials, those officials are arrested, they can only blame them for their lack of greed, ignorance of current affairs, and honestly do things in accordance with the law, Although the promotion of official positions is a little slower, there is no risk, there is no need to sleep all day long, ambition matches ability, self-knowledge, are you afraid that there will be no good ending?
By mid-December, about 13,000 gang members and hooligans had been captured, and after a rough trial by the government, all of them were exiled to overseas colonies, 11,000 of whom were sent to the Congo colonies in Africa, and the rest were divided into three batches, entering Zilu, Tonga, and Samoa, in accordance with the colonial exchange agreement signed with the Germans in July 1878. Received the two islands of Zilu and Samoa, which were directly controlled by the Germans, and received the commercial posts set up by the Germans in Tonga.