readx;?readx; Chapter 640 Wucheng Wang's New Deal

On April 20 of the second year of Tianyou, Emperor Tianyou made a clear statement to the world and promulgated the shocking and far-reaching "Tianyou Second Year State and Government Affairs Reform and Elimination Edict", also known as "Tianyou New Law", but it is more resounding in history called "Wucheng Wang Xinzheng", because Qin Yutian is the initiator of this matter, he planned the blueprint of the change, perfected the details of the change, and used his authority and iron fist to escort it and make it from the idea into reality. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

In fact, to be serious, the beginning of the reform should not be counted from the date of the promulgation of its landmark document, the "God Bless New Law". A common view is that it should start with Qin Lei's speech in Qinghe Garden.

Because from a longitudinal point of view, whether it was the previous purge of courtiers, the large appointment of probationary officials in the middle, and the later promulgation and implementation of the 'Examination Law'. This series of initiatives is clearly coherent and well-designed.

From the pacification of Li Hun to today, every action of Qin Lei and Qin Ting, in addition to gathering authority, also hides a deeper purpose, that is, 'clean up the rule of officials'!

The truth is actually very simple, everything is done by people, and if there is a problem with the person who does it, then no matter how good the song is, it will be sung crookedly. Only by first sorting out the horns who sing the tune can we sing the tune well.

Therefore, Qin Lei believes that although the domestic hematopoietic function was seriously insufficient at that time, the finances could not make ends meet year after year, and they were facing a serious financial crisis. But that's hidden in the deeper governance of the bureaucracy**. It is precisely because the officials have formed cliques and raced to abuse their power for personal gain, 'harming the people to support a few,' and turning themselves into a privileged class that does not pay taxes and eats the state treasury, that the state cannot collect taxes and has no money to spend where it should be spent, so that it has fallen into a predicament all year round.

What is even more odious is that in order to be able to go unpunished for their misdeeds for a long time, these noble bureaucrats regard bullying and concealing their superiors as common sense; Ignoring the monarch and the people, so that 'although the upper ze is clothed, it cannot be sparse, and although the lower feelings are bitter, it cannot be reached',

Therefore, if we do not first solve the problem of the administration of officials, we will certainly misuse people in the process of implementing the new law, so that the new law will become a tool for local officials to harass and trap the people, which will be beneficial and harmless to the people and the state, and will even be opposed by the people.

Moreover, the change of law violated the interests of the landlords of the Shi clan a lot, and if these people were not eliminated first, they would certainly be fiercely opposed.

When the time comes, it's really 'Zhu Bajie looks in the mirror, and he is not a person inside and out'. It can be seen that before the rule of officials is clarified and the old forces are not broken, reform will encounter many unexpected difficulties.

It is precisely because of these potential problems that the "God-bless New Deal" will begin with the title: 'The way of governance is not to be anxious to reassure the people's livelihood, but to reassure the people, but to govern the nuclear officials!' "It is clearly pointed out that if the officials are not right, all government decrees will be mere formalities!

Therefore, although facing a serious financial crisis, Qin Lei did not rashly rectify the finances as soon as he came up, but first reformed the rule of officials. As for how to reform the rule of officials, through observation and thinking over the years, he also has a very clear understanding.

Qin Lei believes that the illness of the government and the opposition at that time can be summed up in eight big words: 'Leaking into a wind, and government with bribery'! The main reason is that the "officials are not clear in governance", so that the powers and responsibilities are not clear, and they pass the buck to each other. Even if you finally want to do something, you still pat your head and think of what to do, there is no plan in advance, no tracking during the event, and no summary afterwards.

After all, in the original situation where there is no supervision, no accountability, and the same good work, it is difficult for anyone to take things seriously and do things in a down-to-earth manner.

It was in this state of chaos that the imperial court was extremely inefficient, the country's resources were seriously wasted, and the burden on the people was extremely heavy. This has led to a series of ills today.

After finding out the situation, Qin Lei decided to prescribe the right medicine, he did not reprimand, did not promote, and only used a trick to show his determination to the world!

Since the original bureaucracy has been entrenched and there is no cure, then well, please go home all, without you king butchers, Lao Tzu will still eat pigs with hair!

The people are gone, and the structure of the imperial court is naturally kneaded with him, Qin Lei drastically cut off more than half of the redundant official establishment of the total, and then stuffed the scholars in the Qinghe University Hall into it.

After seeing the prince's thunderous methods, these rookie officials who were single-handedly promoted to high positions by him naturally obeyed their orders and did not dare to make a slight mistake.

Under the premise of clear rewards and punishments and fair law enforcement, Qin Lei implemented the long-planned 'test method'. In the past year, the court has ordered that although it is thousands of miles away, it will be carried out day by day, and the efficiency has been greatly improved!

Ironically, these trembling rookies are entangled in tasks all day long, just thinking about passing the assessment, but don't be stripped of their official positions, then they will be a dead person. So that he had no time to carry out the most important, most laborious, and most cruel intrigue in the officialdom, and for a time the air in the court was unprecedentedly fresh, and the administrative efficiency soon surpassed that of the predecessor.

When the imperial court became clear and concerted, Qin Lei obtained a handy weapon. He then used this transformed tool to carry out reforms in the economy, people's livelihood and other aspects, and for a time he was invincible and achieved twice the result with half the effort.

The measures of the "God-bless New Deal" can be summarized as 24 words: 'Acres of land, tax reform, water conservancy, and price leveling. Emphasis was placed on the imperial examination, the development of industry and commerce, the smooth flow of transportation, and the strengthening of armaments. 'Eight real points.

These eight articles are divided into two parts, the first four can be regarded as the measures to reassure the people, and the last four are the policies of strengthening the country, and listen to us in the same way.

Let's talk about 'Zhangtian Mu' first, which is the inventory land mentioned before. The edict of the reform of the law said: 'The rich people have land but do not give it, the poor people lose and lose, and the people are poor and flee, so the amount is reduced', which is the root cause of 'the country is poor and the people are poor'.

In order to change this situation, the edict ordered a re-measurement of land throughout the country and an inventory of the land that had been evaded in taxes, so as to increase the taxes of the imperial court and reduce the burden on the people.

Article 2 'Changing the tax' is mainly aimed at the fact that the current field endowment is divided into summer grain and autumn grain, and there are various names in the collection of taxes, which are very cumbersome, and the phenomena of corruption and deduction are very serious. All taxes, tributes, and all expenses required by the central and local governments, as well as all conscription, are now uniformly distributed.

Except for the rice, wheat and silk silk necessary by the state, which are still handed over in kind, and the Ding silver converted from forced labor is still borne by the people, the rest of the 'silver is levied on the mu', and all the money converted into tax silver by the officials is converted into tax silver, which is a total income and is collected uniformly. In this way, tax evasion and tax evasion can be avoided for those who have more land, and more taxes for those with less land can be avoided, and the tax burden can be balanced.

Moreover, it is easy for the state to grasp how much to collect, and it is easy for the people to know how much to pay, and it can also prevent officials from deceiving their superiors and subordinates and profiting from them.

It is worth noting that the edict clearly stipulates that the servitude that the common people should serve is also converted according to the standard set by the imperial court, and added to the tax and silver according to the total number of dingkou of each household.

At the same time, it is a clear statement that the government is 'recruited for the sake of officials', and hires people to serve according to local labor standards. Convert the gratuitous into paid, and the money will be taken out of the tax that has been collected.

The benefits of this are huge. For example, before the promulgation of the new law, the government was very arbitrary, in addition to urging taxes, distributing land grain, building roads, building embankments, and other official errands, they would also use the people to carry, cook, carry sedan chairs, and drive for their own homes without compensation, and so on, completely in the name of official service, ordering the people to do slave work.

After the implementation of the new law, the power to hire people will be uniformly transferred to the state government, and each county will report the required labor according to the actual situation, and then the state government will approve and allocate funds in a unified manner, and the completion of the work will also be checked to avoid false public benefits.

Obviously, the new law has changed the chaotic system of forced labor, greatly reduced the phenomenon of excessive government requisition, freed the people from heavy labor, and could spend more time engaged in production and create wealth for the country.

At the same time, the two novelties of taxing labor and converting silver into money and paying for it will inevitably elevate silver money to a key position in social and economic life, which is conducive to the prosperity of commerce and economic development.

The third is to 'repair water conservancy', summing up the lessons and lessons of the three major water conservancy projects, namely, dredging the Grand Canal, reopening the Jingshui River, and digging diversion canals, so as to re-manage the major river basins and the major river basins. By diverting the main trunk, reduce flooding and increase the irrigation area.

Fourth, the 'price leveling' is that the imperial court has invested a huge amount of money to set up the city Yi Division in Zhongdu, Luoyang, and Xiangyang, and the task is to purchase grain and rice from the people at a reasonable price during the harvest period, so as to curb illegal traders from taking the opportunity to lower prices and prevent grain cheapness from hurting peasants, and rice cheapness hurting peasants; Then, when there is a shortage of food such as a spring famine or a disaster in a certain place, it is sold to the people at a reasonable price, and it is also in order to curb the illegal tyrants from hoarding and blackmailing the people.

The two-pronged approach can make the production and life of the people more secure, so that they will not easily go bankrupt and become tenant farmers. Just as the edict said, 'The powerful and the lowly, all have nothing, to level the price, to help the people, so it is also a merger.' ’

From the above four articles, it can be seen that Qin Lei's reform is aimed at 'reassuring the people' and relieving the burden of the people as much as possible. His vision is that within ten years, the vast majority of them will be able to feed their families and children, and will not flee the countryside and become displaced people who endanger society. Within 20 years, half of the families will have surplus wealth...... At least you can buy something if you want to save energy every year.

But we can also see that Qin Lei's method is beneficial to the people and the court, but there is a group of people who must not be too happy. That is, the vested interests who did not pay taxes and did not serve, and could drive the people to do this and that at will, and from time to time they could also make a fortune by hoarding and making a fortune.

These people include the lords of the scholar clan who were temporarily kicked out of the court by the Qin brothers, and even the upstarts who have just entered the court in the future. Although Qin Lei did not have a good impression of those bureaucrats, he also knew that he still had to rely on these scholars to govern the world after all, not those ordinary people who felt his favor......

The former Tang Taizong said: 'The people are the water, the king is the boat, the water can carry the boat, and it can also overturn the boat.' The support of the people is indeed a great power, but most of the time it is not a great power. is like him, Li Shimin, who relied on the gang of old Xi'er gate valves to take over the world, not the support of the common people.

Therefore, the focus of his sentence is on the last sentence, 'can also overturn the boat'. Li Shimin clearly realized that under the docile appearance of the common people, there was an incomparably violent power. This power is enough to destroy the heavens and the earth and change the heavens to a new one.

Because they are afraid, they love their people. The ancient sages are all like this, and Qin Lei is no exception. But what can really help these supreme beings are the not-so-lovable bureaucrats and the various forces they represent.

Neither side should be offended too much, this is a contradiction. Qin Lei's solution is that no one should take anyone's life, they all have some benefits, and they all take a step back, hello, I'm good, everyone...... It's very untechnical, but it works.

In fact, this is also a helpless choice, because if he wants to change and let the people live, he must let the big households stop exploiting and oppressing the people. But if you simply let the big families suffer, they will not be happy, even if they don't work against Qin Lei, they will never cooperate with him.

If you push these people into a hurry, there will be a big mess too. Therefore, Qin Lei's last four articles are inclined to the scholars as much as possible......

For example, Article 5 'Heavy Imperial Examination'. The "New Deal" clearly pointed out that the imperial examination would be the only right way for the state to select scholars, and that the selection of officials would be carried out on the basis of the principles of 'free registration, public examination, equal competition, and merit-based selection', and all other methods would be abolished.

This decree is an improvement in the Qin state's system of electing officials, and it is a reversal of the chaos of the imperial examination that has been made into a miasma. It is the most direct and powerful alternative and negation of the probation system, the expropriation system and the shadow protection system, and provides a platform, opportunity and condition for fair competition for the landlords and ordinary people of the Shu nationality to enter the ranks through the ladder of the imperial examination and enter the political stage of history.

The new law reiterates that the imperial examination system should be divided into two parts: the civil examination and the martial examination. It is emphasized that martial arts is a subject set up for the special selection of military attachés. 'The two disciplines of civil and military, different paths go hand in hand, regardless of superiority and inferiority'.

But having said that, the country ultimately needs civil servants to govern, and the military generals pay more attention to military exploits, who can fight is a hero, not what year you were born in martial arts, you are the first; I was born in the martial arts of that year, and I was the first.

Therefore, the status of Wuju is not as good as that of Wenju, which is beyond doubt, and it is not something that can be changed by a holy decree.

Judging from the statistics of the past years, most of the people who participated in the martial arts were from ordinary families, and among the people who participated in the cultural examination, there were more people from the families of Shu landlords. This is easy to understand, after all, in the eyes of the world, being a soldier carrying a gun is a rough man's work, although it is easy to make meritorious contributions, but it is also too dangerous. Except for those curious and rebellious sons, the vast majority of them are children of ordinary families, with strong hands and feet, and some swords, guns and sticks, so they want to join the army through this way and fight for military achievements...... At least you don't have to start from scratch, do you?

Wenju is a completely different story, first of all, in this era, reading is a very luxurious thing...... Bundles are expensive, books are expensive, pen and ink are expensive, and white paper is even more expensive. It is conservatively estimated that it will take a total of ten years for a student to start from the "Three Character Classic" and the thousand-character text in Mongolia until he reads the Four Books and Five Classics.

Therefore, most of the deeds of those who can't even eat and can still pass the championship are inspirational stories and can't be real. Even if there is occasional, it is also the son of an official eunuch who is unexpected, and he has a unique advantage.

Therefore, it would be nice to have one literate person out of a hundred. Therefore, the people have a natural reverence for the scholars...... Don't say that you are admitted to the Jinshi, even if you are a showman, you will be awe-inspired.

Therefore, when the children of the Shi landlords collapsed, the Shu landlords definitely belonged to the literate category among all kinds of people in Daqin. Therefore, there is no doubt that in the fair imperial examination led by Qin Lei, their chances of passing the examination are much higher than those of the scholars and commoners.

This is Qin Lei's inclination towards the scholar...... And not the gentry. In his vision, the Shu landlords would become the new scholars, squeezing out the position of the original scholars.

As for those scholars who have been kicked out of the circle of power, Qin Lei has the sixth article of 'prosperous industry and commerce' and the seventh article of 'smooth transportation' to serve. To promote industry and commerce is to encourage industry and commerce, which may be the most rebellious of all the changes, so all dynasties have regarded merchants as people who are in turmoil, believing that they are hoarders, disrupt the local economic order, and are mercenary, which is incompatible with the moral society.

But if Qin Lei wants to say that they are farting, without the trading and transshipment of merchants, then the rice in Jingzhou Mansion will not reach Luoyang City, and the well salt in the Bashu land will not reach Zhongdu City. Then the peasant brothers all over the country can only produce and use their own products, and the Chinese economy will also go back a thousand years.

As for how to deal with hoarding and speculation, Qin Lei has already elaborated in detail on Article 4 of the price level, so there is no need to repeat it here.

Although there are such and such problems, Qin Lei still thinks that the flaws are not hidden, and he feels that the status of businessmen should be higher, because they are the accelerators of social production and life. With them, producers can sell their goods as soon as possible, shorten the production cycle, and consumers can get the products they need in time, which greatly stimulates consumption. Therefore, if the business is up, other industries will be injected with a burst of strength and obtain a faster development speed.

Qin Lei knew very well that the country could not stand without agriculture and without business, so while establishing the status of agriculture, he did not forget to develop industry and commerce. There are three specific measures: first, abolish the power of the state capital and below to set up cards to collect taxes, a batch of goods circulating in the province, only need to pay a commercial tax, and then as long as it does not leave the province, it will not be taxed again, reflecting the principle of no heavy taxation. Second, the tax rate will be lowered, and the commercial tax will be reduced from five to one; Thirdly, all unreasonable restrictions on merchants should be abolished and their private property should be made inviolable.

In order to stimulate industry and commerce, he put forward the seventh 'smooth traffic', there is a saying: 'if you want to get rich, first build roads', with a wide and flat road, the traffic will be convenient, there will be no worries about the production of things can not be transported, there will be no worries about running around, it will greatly reduce the cost of businessmen, it can be said that it is like a tiger with wings.

Moreover, with the spacious roads extending in all directions, the distance between cities and prefectures can be significantly shortened, which is conducive to the control of the imperial court over the local area and national security, so Qin Lei put smooth traffic in such an important position.

But of course, he will not do these things personally, but will adopt the method of reviving the yamen, and set up similar institutions in various provinces across the country, the same is the royal family, the government, and the wealthy tripartite joint venture, the same wealthy family contributes huge wealth, the government opens the door to the door, Qin Lei provides shelter for it, and the industry and commerce in the jurisdiction and the transportation industry are all handed over to him to take care of, and the income is also in accordance with the established proportion, the royal family takes 20%, the court takes 40%, and the wealthy family takes 40%.

Qin Lei has the confidence to do this, and has already carried out a pilot project in the south, and its effect is so good and the benefits are so great that the gentry and wealthy families in other provinces are so red that they can't sleep...... The exorbitant prices of the revival yamen are proof of this. Moreover, Qin Lei had long stipulated that the deliberations of the revival yamen, as well as their close relatives, were not allowed to serve in the government offices of the two southern provinces, artificially demarcating a line for them.

In this way, the owner of the assets is not directly involved in the management activities, but can effectively supervise, restrain and even propose the removal of relevant dereliction of duty officials, so that the Shu landlords are in power, and the Shi landlords supervise, and a system of mutual restraint and mutual supervision has been established.

Qin Lei's good intentions are vividly reflected in this matter.

As for the last article of 'armament', it is about the arrangement of the military strength of the Great Qin, and the edict is not clear, we can only know that the imperial court seems to feel that the current army is enough, and there is no intention of recruiting troops again, but the allocation of military expenses has quietly doubled, and it is obvious that it is going to take the route of elite soldiers.