This time, the confrontation between the bureaucracy represented by Wang Fuqian and the emperor made Zhou Lang extremely surprised, and the reason why he was surprised was because he did not expect it.

Because he and Wang Fuqian as the representative of the Wenchen group did not show such a fierce contradiction, there were conflicts before, but the problems were not big, and it was not a power struggle caused by personal desires, it was basically a dispute of ideas, and the controversy was also resolved within the scope of the dispute between gentlemen, but this time it was directly intensified.

Unlike Wang Fuqian, who secretly rejoiced that the scholars and scholars overwhelmed the emperor in doing whatever he wanted, Zhou Lang felt that the situation was much more serious.

Basically, the current bureaucracy is divided into two parts, Wang Fuqian leads the six ministries as prime minister, and Zhou Lang uses the imperial institutions such as the Ministry of Internal Affairs to create a modern commercial tax system, industrial management system, and so on.

Both sets of institutions have their own financial backing and are therefore increasingly independent.

But the confrontation is not enough, because the power of the prime minister in the Ming and Qing dynasties is getting smaller and smaller, and the two dynasties do not have the official position of prime minister, and the Ming Dynasty still has the shadow of the prime minister, forming a cabinet first and auxiliary system, and the Manchu Qing Dynasty simply did not even form this system, and the imperial power is extremely powerful.

The Great Zhou inherited the political system of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, so although Wang Fuqian had the position of prime minister, he was even inferior to the cabinet chief assistant of the Ming Dynasty in terms of power. Basically, the appointment and dismissal of officials at the level of supervision are all decided by Zhou Lang himself, and Wang Fuqian has the right to make suggestions, but not the right to decide, he can recommend candidates, but he can't be the master. The prime minister can directly appoint and dismiss the official positions of the prefect and below, which is the scope of his power; But he can't say a word, it's not that whoever he wants to be an official can be an official, and there is a set of strict procedures. Just as the prime minister has the power to recommend candidates to the emperor for governorship, it is the ministry of officials in charge of the appointment of officials throughout the country, and even the prime minister has to go through this set of procedures through the ministry of officials, in fact, the ministry can directly appoint and dismiss county orders without the approval of the prime minister.

Therefore, in terms of the most important personnel power, Wang Fuqian basically only has the right to decide on the state officials, and is also subject to the officials. The ministry does not recommend it, and he has no right to appoint an unrelated person.

Therefore, it is not unreasonable that this system handed down from generation to generation can enable China to maintain its leading position for 2,000 years. His checks and balances are profound.

But Zhou Lang felt that this kind of checks and balances were basically a formality in the Ming and Qing dynasties, mainly because they were disturbed by too many human feelings, and no one wanted to offend people. It is more difficult to reform the atmosphere of the society with human feelings than it is to reform the rule of officials, so Zhou Lang does not consider the issue of changing customs for the time being, he can only think about how to eliminate the interference of human feelings from this political system of checks and balances.

Therefore, from the very beginning of the business, he has always adhered to the principle that each department operates independently from each other and is not interfered with by other departments. The officials of the Ministry of Officials must have slowly climbed up from the officials of the county government, rather than suddenly transferring the Shangshu of the Ministry of Household to the Ministry of Officials. There is no such operation.

As a result, the six ministries have become six independent bureaucratic systems, and there will be no intricate circle of contacts, the circle of the household department is the household department, and the circle of the official department is the official department, of course, it is still impossible to rule out the relationship circle of the same year and fellow villagers, but after all, the circle of interests has narrowed.

In this way, when the officials of the Ministry of Officials are appointed, there is no need to consider that the father of a certain candidate is the Household Department Scholar, and this Household Department Scholar heard that he was going to be transferred to the Ministry of Officials, so he hurriedly promoted his son to curry favor with his superiors.

There is no need to consider it when the household department approves, the second uncle of the person in charge of this project is the household department, and it is very likely that he will be promoted to become a scholar.

Moreover, this not only excludes the phenomenon of overly complicated circles, but also ensures professionalism, a household secretary is suddenly transferred to the Ministry of Industry, he cannot have the professional skills of an engineer, and a good official in charge of the ritual ceremony is not immediately proficient in accounting when transferred to the household department.

However, after ensuring professionalism in this way, another political phenomenon inevitably appeared, called factions!

This faction is cohesive and cohesive because of departmental interests, and it is true that it is less disturbed in the performance of its duties, but it is also more effective in the performance of power. It has not yet appeared, because the country has been initially decided, the upper echelons are basically stable, and there are no large-scale personnel changes, but if the post of prime minister is vacant in the future, it is estimated that the six Shangshu will compete wildly, and the officials of their respective factions will be in a mess.

The situation may even exceed the six departments, because now the six departments can even be counted as one faction, the leader is Wang Fuqian, and the officials of the industrial and commercial system formed by Zhou Lang are considered another faction.

This is not Zhou Lang's speculation, but the fact that has been formed, he has determined that the officials of the industrial and commercial system have their own independent identity, although everyone inevitably has to communicate with the officials of the traditional six ministry system, but they call themselves the imperial election officials.

They are in their own way, often graduated from various government-run schools, entered the industrial and commercial system, and rose up all the way, because these systems are personally controlled by the emperor and under the jurisdiction of the internal affairs government, they have already begun to recognize themselves as protégés of the Son of Heaven when they are in school, and they call themselves emperors when they enter the officialdom.

Correspondingly, the officials of the six ministries who were born in the imperial examination called themselves the officials of the imperial examination.

Not even the six ministries interact, let alone the more professional industrial and commercial and traditional civil officials, so this identity has not only emerged, but is bound to become more and more profound.

Zhou Lang could not allow this situation to continue to develop, so he urgently promoted the reform of the imperial examination, and he tried to make the officials from the imperial examination and the officials from the school more intellectually closer.

Unfortunately, the first attempt at reform ended with fierce opposition from the traditional bureaucracy.

Zhou Lang will not turn back on the road of reform, he can take a detour, but he will definitely not retreat.

The road of reform through the imperial examination at the top will not work, because the imperial examination may be the foundation of the traditional bureaucracy, which is their core, and there is a feeling that the Great Xia will tilt at every move, so from the level of psychological consciousness and interests, they will fiercely confront.

If he had to confront the traditional bureaucracy, Zhou Lang preferred to replace those officials from the imperial examination with officials from the school, that is, to use the imperial election officials to suppress the imperial election officials.

Zhou Lang decided to launch a political offensive.

Since it is an offensive, it is definitely necessary to attack the enemy's weaknesses with its own strengths.

The imperial electors have one of the biggest advantages, that is, they are incorruptible, not because their morality is more noble than that of the imperial election officials, but because the industrial and commercial system created by Zhou Lang is more complete.

First of all, in systems such as taxation, he tried to avoid taxes that could drill holes for people, and earlier he did not even weigh them because he lacked sufficient manpower to supervise them.

Thirdly, Zhou Lang also has a complete accounting inspection mechanism, which conducts spot checks on all accounts from time to time, and doubles and expands after spot checks, and comprehensively inspects if there are problems.

Third, Zhou Lang's official salary level is relatively about half higher than that of the official selection officer, because most of them are professionals, and Zhou Lang believes that professional skills should be rewarded.

With small loopholes, large supervision, and a high level of income, corruption is naturally much lighter when the moral standard is the same.

One or two people can't show it, but the imperial election officials have formed factions, and this scale is already calculated in tens of thousands, and the bureaucratic system of such a scale has already appeared its own culture, and the imperial election officials themselves feel that they have a clean and honest style, and this habit that has penetrated into the cultural level has in turn strengthened the integrity.

In the people, the imperial election officials have also established their own image of integrity, businessmen found that when dealing with the imperial election officials, there is no need to give gifts at all, and when dealing with the imperial election officials, the exchange of gifts is indispensable.

Although their incorruptibility is not because of morality, the people regard incorruptibility as morality, and the formation of the culture of imperial election officials, they also regard incorruptible behavior as a moral norm, putting a noble veil on their psychology.

So the imperial election officials began to look down on the imperial election officials, thinking that they were a group of corrupt elements, and the imperial election officials also rejected the imperial election officials, thinking that they were a group of rough billets, who read few sages and sages, and did not understand elegance, and who were very good at abacus, and could not do things and compose half a sentence.

Moreover, the section election officials have never admitted that they have problems with their work style, there is competition from the imperial election officials, coupled with the atmosphere of the new dynasty, and Wang Fuqian is quite capable, the corrupt atmosphere of officialdom is not strong, and it is far worse than that of the Qianlong period. Therefore, the reason why everyone says that the officials are corrupt is mainly because there are more officials in the department, which leads to a large number of corrupt officials, which creates the false impression that the officials are all corrupt officials, and it is just a few rats that have harmed a pot of soup.

However, Zhou Lang was very sure that there must be a lot of corrupt elements among the officials selected by the department, because it was an administrative system inherited from the Manchu Qing Dynasty, and it was connected to the most corrupt late Qianlong period, the system was full of loopholes, and the personnel basically remained unchanged.

It is as if after the Manchu Qing Dynasty entered the customs, Shunzhi, Kangxi and Yongzheng, the problem of corruption was very serious, which was very different from the image of honesty in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, because the Manchu Qing Dynasty accepted a corrupt Ming Dynasty bureaucratic system, the system has not changed, the officials have not changed, and the corruption will naturally not change.

Therefore, Zhou Lang's first shot at the bureaucracy began with the investigation of corruption.

Moreover, he did not start from the top, it was too risky to fight the big tiger, and he learned lessons from the reform of the imperial examination, and it was more difficult to move the top level than the grassroots level, but the grassroots level was relatively more important.

Therefore, he started from the grassroots level, and he randomly checked the accounts of more than 300 counties over the years, and the results immediately determined that there must be problems in 80 of them. It is difficult to say whether there are problems with the other two counties.

It's too easy to check them, you don't need to send spies to spy on them, you can just transfer their reported money and food account books directly from the six files.

The numbers don't lie, compare these data with the neighboring counties, the surrounding counties have increased by ten points, or decreased by ten points, and you only have increased by five points, or decreased by fifteen points, which is easy to judge that there is no problem.