Chen Lifu did not stay long at his friend Zhong Cai's house, and left in the afternoon, first picking up his wife and little sister, and then returning to Dongchen Village, but on the way back, there was a large stack of books on his carriage.

These books are all published by the Royal Publishing House, of different types, these books are naturally not about the Four Books and the Five Classics, but some miscellaneous books, such as books The scholars under the rule of the Tang Dynasty, regardless of whether they have the heart to apply for the Tang Imperial Examination or become an official, but most of them will buy a copy of "Introduction to Science".

This is an introduction to science, but the book used by the Royal Press to promote the popularization of science knowledge includes simple arithmetic knowledge, as well as simple physics, chemistry, astronomy, geography, climate, and biology.

Although after reading this book, it is impossible to know any advanced knowledge, and I don't know what the principle of some phenomena mentioned in the book is, but it is not important, this book does not tell you why the earth is round, but simply and straightforwardly: the earth is round!

It will not tell you why the water is still not hot when it boils in a place with high waves, but it will tell you directly: boiling water in the high mountains, the temperature is so low.

To put it simply, this book is to tell you the results directly, but it will not be a long and large argument as to why there is such a result, otherwise, let alone a book, even a large room of books will not be finished.

If you want to understand why this is the case, then please study books such as "Elementary Physics" and "Elementary Chemistry" in depth, and if you want to specialize, then you need to enter a college of higher learning or Guozijian for systematic and in-depth study.

There are also two other books that have broadened their horizons, such as an overview of the kingdoms of Tessie and an overview of East Asia.

At the same time, there is also "Treatise on Agriculture and Mulberry", which is dedicated to agricultural affairs.

Of course, none of this is important, the most important thing is a manuscript in his hand, titled "The Essentials of the Governance of Fuzhou and County of Tang Dynasty Officials", which is not a publicly published book, but a book compiled by the Royal Publishing House, and then printed internally and then distributed to local officials at all levels within the Tang Dynasty.

The content of this book is based on the governance experience of the Tang Dynasty in the past few years, and it is intended to enable local officials to better govern in the local area.

Well, the core purpose is to avoid local officials messing around!

And many of the contents of the book are emphasized in a few special words, the first is education, but this education is not to teach more readers, but to let the officials strengthen the sense of belonging of the people under their rule to the Tang Dynasty, loyalty to the ancient sage, at any time, to the loyalty of the monarch as the most important thing to do.

The second is the people's livelihood, which must ensure that the people under the rule live and work in peace and contentment, and the people have food, clothing, and housing.

The third is the economy: It is hoped that all localities will make use of their own advantages, develop mineral resources with mineral resources, grow grain on fertile land, and develop commercial and trade transportation with convenient transportation.

The second and third of them actually mean almost the same thing, but the former is the foundation, while the latter is an advanced task.

On the one hand, the Ministry of Rites came up with this key point of governance, on the one hand, because the level of officials under the current Tang Dynasty is uneven, and there are many former Ming Dynasty officials in it, and many of them still have governance methods in the Ming Dynasty, that is, rule by inaction.

And Li Xuan is very disgusted by this, since you are in charge of the government, you actually travel around the mountains and rivers every day to visit the Qinglou, don't do any, and say that your name is inaction, you are so lazy, how can you be embarrassed to review the chapter every day!

This is simply intolerable, so in the past two years, Li Xuan has taken off the hats of many officials who travel around the mountains and rivers every day under the banner of inaction!

Chen Lifu was quite interested in this policy essential, and on the way back, he looked through it, even the many regulations and even specific examples listed in it made him frown.

For example, it uses big black letters to seriously warn that local officials are not allowed to meddle in military affairs, and local officials are not allowed to meddle in the independent operation of the Inspectorate and the Grand Court, and violators will be severely punished.

He then said that local officials were forbidden to collect taxes, fees, and forced labor under any name.

Most of the content in this huge book of policy essentials is to warn officials not to do this, not to do that.

After a little while, Chen Lifu just sighed: "It seems that it is not easy to be an official in Li Tang!" ”

It's not, being an official in the Tang Dynasty is naturally not easy, if it is the military officers, it is fine, now is their most glorious time, but the civilian officials will be much harder.

Lack of funds, lack of manpower, and exhaustion have revitalized the local economy, and taxes have risen, and as a result, most of the tax revenue has been taken away by the military as military expenses, and then they are left alone in the wind.

But even so, the officials in the Tang Dynasty are still gritting their teeth and insisting, because they know that the current situation will not last long, the war cannot be fought every year, and the pace of army expansion is not endless.

After the Tang Dynasty completely unifies China, their good days will come.

After all, in the founding stage, everything was naturally inclined towards the army, but when the world was peaceful, this huge country would have to rely on them as civil officials to govern.

Throughout the dynasties, it was not in the early days of the dynasty that it was heavy on military and light on literature, but after entering a period of stability, it was basically heavy on literature and light on military force.

So they are waiting, waiting for the time that belongs to their civil servants to come!

In addition, the person who dares to rebel with Li Xuan now, even if he is a civil official, has great ambitions, and now the senior civil officials in the Tang Dynasty, which one of them does not want to be the founder of the country, and then win a glory and wealth.

This kind of opportunity to rebel and open the country will not be encountered once in hundreds of years!

Now that they have seized the opportunity, they will naturally not give up easily!

The expectations for the future and their own ambitions, coupled with the general trend, so although the civil officials in the Tang Dynasty are living a very hard life now, they are all struggling one by one.

Of course, this is just an exaggerated adjective, if you really want to talk about it carefully, in fact, the salary of an official in the Tang Dynasty is not low, especially the salary of middle and senior officials is actually very good.

The annual salary of a seven-grade county order can reach about 1,000 taels of silver, and the specific figure fluctuates according to the financial situation of each province, but the overall gap will not be too big.

Although this income is not worth mentioning compared to corruption, the income of 1,000 taels of silver a year can actually allow officials to maintain good dignity and support a large family.

After all, people's incomes in these years are generally very low, for example, ordinary workers in the Zhaoqing Arsenal have a monthly salary of about one or five taels of silver, and their annual income is only twenty taels.

The salary of low-level skilled workers or low-level management is generally about ten taels per year, and rarely exceeds one hundred taels of silver.

Only middle and senior management and technical personnel will earn more than 100 taels of silver or more every year.

Generally speaking, if the annual income is more than 100 taels of silver, then it is basically enough to maintain a decent life for a family of several people, and you can also hire an old mother, maid or something.

If it is five or six hundred and two years of income, it is a super high-income class, thousands of taels, and it already belongs to the elite class.

And the head of a county happens to belong to the elite class.

Therefore, although there are many restrictions on being an official in the Tang Dynasty, it is much more legal income than being an official in the Ming Dynasty, of course, corrupt officials have to say that people are too lazy to take a look at these thousand taels of silver, and when they are county orders for three years, they are embarrassed to say that they are corrupt officials if they don't make tens of thousands of taels of silver.

However, with such a high income, why are the civil officials of Datang still very hard, especially the middle and senior officials!

Because the Tang Dynasty is often in arrears of wages, especially the salaries of senior officials!

This high income is just a sight in the mirror, you can see it, but you can't get it!

Most of the salaries of officials, many of them have turned into national debt!

As an orthodox dynasty, it is naturally impossible for the Tang Dynasty to publicly default on salaries, but there is no money in the treasury, how to send it?

In the past, it was to issue IOUs and then call on officials to donate and so on, but since the Royal Bank came out, it has changed its method and issued a kind of treasury bonds specifically for officials with relatively high interest rates, and then a part of the salaries of middle and senior officials was directly converted into five-year treasury bonds and issued to them.

Of course, in order to reassure the officials, interest will still be paid every year.

Although some people are dissatisfied with the court's almost cheating method, there is no way, after all, everyone knows that the court has no money.

Otherwise, the cabinet ministries and even the local yamen would not have been bent on increasing their revenues in various ways.

It's hard to be an official in Datang, but no matter how hard it is, there are people who go, and Chen Lifu is one of them.

Unlike former Ming officials like Chen Lifu, who can be directly recruited into the office, those who raise people and show talents either continue to participate in the imperial examination and then gain the fame of Jinshi and climb to the sky, or they participate in the selection examination of various provinces and directly enter the office.

This situation is the same as the imperial examination, after the Tang Dynasty took Jiangnan, almost overnight, the attitude of people all over the world, especially scholars, towards the Tang Dynasty changed instantly.

This can be seen from the name of Jiangnan Shizi to the Tang Dynasty, in the past, it was all pseudo-Tang, and now, many people no longer say so, but changed to Li Tang, and in special places and occasions, the word Li Tang is no longer said, but directly said the court, the country.

This court is naturally not the Ming Dynasty, but the Tang Dynasty!

At the same time, many people are already like Chen Lifu, ready to become officials in the Tang Dynasty to change many chaotic and tyrannical governments in the Tang Dynasty and benefit the people.

For the sake of the common people in the world, they did not hesitate to join the Tang thieves, feed the tiger with their bodies, and save the country and save the common people in the world!

Therefore, for a while, the sales of all kinds of books published by the Royal Publishing House, especially all kinds of basic books related to the Tang Imperial Examination, were quite good, which made the Ministry of Rites happy.