Xiaguan Fan Zhongyan visited Dingbei Hou! Fan Zhongyan saw Li Zhang enter the living room, and immediately got up and saluted.

"Fan Shilang doesn't have to be polite, I heard that Fan Shilang returned to Beijing yesterday, he should have seen His Majesty today, right?" Li Zhang also smiled politely at the moment, and then ordered his subordinates to serve tea again, and asked the other party to sit down again.

Fan Zhongyan also nodded at this time and said: "After the end of the dynasty this morning, His Majesty summoned me to the Vertical Arch Hall alone, and he also explained a lot of things, which also made me understand His Majesty's determination to rectify the officialdom. ”

When he said this, he saw Fan Zhongyan pause, and then he spoke again: "It's just that it's easy to rectify officialdom, but there are many difficulties, I just returned to the capital, and I really don't know where to start, Your Majesty asked me to ask the Marquis of Dingbei for advice, so I took the liberty to come to the door, and please don't blame the Marquis of Dingbei!" ”

Hearing that Fan Zhongyan was assigned by Zhao Zhen, Li Zhang also showed a clear look, it is estimated that Zhao Zhen wanted to cheer up Fan Zhongyan himself, so as not to make him retreat, but with his understanding of Fan Zhongyan, even if he didn't say anything, it was impossible for the other party to back down in this matter.

"Some time ago, you should have heard about the Hedong earthquake, Fan Shilang, what do you think about the impact of this incident on the court?" Li Zhang pondered for a moment before asking Fan Zhongyan, he didn't plan to follow Zhao Zhen's thoughts, because in Zhao Zhen's opinion, Fan Zhongyan was just a knife in his hand, but Li Zhang knew that Fan Zhongyan's usefulness was far more than that.

"Now is the best time for Da Song to solve the internal shortcomings, if you miss this opportunity, I am afraid you will have to pay a great price, and the possibility of success is extremely small!" Fan Zhongyan replied without hesitation, his opinion was almost exactly the same as Li Zhang's.

"Yes, this is also the opinion of my majesty and others, so your majesty has made up his mind to get rid of the ills in the country, and the first step is to rectify the rule of officials. Li Zhang also said solemnly at the moment.

At this time, Fan Zhongyan finally showed a sudden expression, when Zhao Zhen saw him today, he only said about the rectification of the officials, and I didn't say anything else, so he didn't quite understand Zhao Zhen's true thoughts, but now after listening to Li Zhang's explanation, all the questions in his heart have been answered, and the whole person has become more excited.

"Dingbei Hou, if the officialdom is rectified, where will Your Majesty start next?" After a while, Fan Zhongyan forcibly suppressed the excitement in his heart, and then asked again.

"It's hard to say, in fact, the rectification of the rule of officials is also a stepping stone for His Majesty, in addition to wanting to sweep away the shortcomings of officialdom, but also to test the reactions of all parties, after knowing this, it is not too late to make future plans, but it is nothing more than land and tax burden." Li Zhang smiled again and spoke.

"I see, but I'm a little too anxious!" Fan Zhongyan also sighed when he heard Li Zhang's answer, and he could hear from Li Zhang's words that Zhao Zhen and Li Zhang were very sober and prepared for a long time, which also made him completely relieved, because he was also worried that Zhao Zhen was too hasty.

Many people may not know, in fact, in the original history, although Fan Zhongyan presided over the Qingli New Deal, but the person who initiated the new policy was not him, but Zhao Zhen as the emperor, Zhao Zhen in history because of the military defeat of the party many times, and was blackmailed by the Liao State, coupled with internal contradictions, so he also desperately wanted to come up with a plan to make the Great Song Dynasty rich and strong, which urged the ministers many times, and in this case, Fan Zhongyan was also pushed to the front of the stage.

Although Fan Zhongyan advised Zhao Zhen not to be too anxious many times, Zhao Zhen was impatient at that time, so the Qingli New Deal was pushed out in such a hurry, but unfortunately the resistance at that time was too great, and the New Deal did not come up with a solution to the fundamental problem, and it quickly failed.

Speaking of solving domestic ills, Fan Zhongyan was also very excited, and immediately told some of his ideas, Li Zhang also told Fan Zhongyan some of his and Zhao Zhen's plans, after all, he valued Fan Zhongyan's ability very much, and hoped that he could make some additions to the previous plan on this basis, and Fan Zhongyan did not disappoint him, and really put forward many good suggestions.

Compared with Li Zhang and Zhao Zhen, Fan Zhongyan may be because he has been a local official for many years, which makes him more aware of the thoughts of middle and lower-level officials and ordinary people, so most of the suggestions he put forward are very specific and practical, such as "Jungongtian", the so-called public field, in fact, belongs to the imperial court's land, and is generally distributed to officials according to the rank of the official, so it is also called Zhitian, and the income belongs to the official, which is a kind of welfare for officials.

Originally, the idea of vocational land was good, but because of the complex entanglement of interests in the officialdom, the distribution of public land was seriously unfair, and some officials did not hold high positions, but because their hands and eyes were able to connect with the people above, they could get a large number of vocational fields, but some officials could only be assigned to barren fields because they had no way, and even the vocational fields were seriously reduced, and these injustices also aggravated the resentment in the officialdom and turned a good law into a bad law.

In addition, there is the problem of the people's tax burden, Fan Zhongyan is even more bitter about this, because he has seen many people go bankrupt because of the heavy tax burden, and some people sell their children and daughters because of this, and even in some places because of the heavy tax burden, the people can not survive, so they simply gather people to rebel, and the imperial court can only increase the tax burden in order to quell the chaos, which leads to local chaos and chaos, and finally falls into a dead circle.

Although Li Zhang has also been to the place, but he has not deeply observed the people's feelings, today he learned from Fan Zhongyan's mouth the real living conditions of the local people, which also made him show a heavy look, although he was also mentally prepared before, but he didn't expect the local situation to be so critical, no wonder Song Qi and Han Qi and others were so anxious to ask the court to change.

But think about it in the original history, it is precisely because of the failure of Wang Anshi's reform that the Great Song Dynasty also quickly fell into the struggle of the last years of a dynasty, the famous Liangshanbo was born in that situation, and there was also a larger Fangla uprising, which dealt a heavy blow to the rule of the Northern Song Dynasty, in that case, even if there was no later Jin invasion, I am afraid that the Northern Song Dynasty would not last for a few years.

Li Zhang and Fan Zhongyan chatted until it was getting late, and invited each other to a banquet, and then sent Fan Zhongyan away, and early the next morning, Fan Zhongyan finally took office and officially began the rectification of the rule of officials!