Time flies, and in a blink of an eye, it is the spring of the sixth year of Wanli. The ice and snow melt the swallows back, and the wicker rolls green elm and money green. The vast North China Plain has woken up from the long winter, rejuvenated with vitality, the cows and horses call the spring scenery like wine, the heaven and the earth warm up and the flowers are fragrant, how can it not make people feel refreshed and happy?

In the past six years, God has given the Ming Dynasty enough face, and the wind and rain are smooth every year, and there is nothing to do in all directions, which is a good time for the insiders to change.

In the past five and a half years, since the six years of Longqing, when Shen Mo came to power, the state has carried out a series of reforms, and politically, it has reorganized the powers and responsibilities of the central government and the various yamen. Among them, the most striking is the collection of financial power and the decentralization of administrative power.

The acquisition of financial rights is a major achievement. Prior to this, although the supply of the whole country was also distributed by the central government, the actual implementation depended on the yamen of the premises that belonged to each other. Yamen of various premises...... Usually the county-level government directly transports supplies to nearby health stations, river workers, and other units that need supplies according to the amount specified by the superiors. A prefecture and county must send money and grain to more than a dozen units that do not match: a health post must receive supplies from more than a dozen prefectures and counties. This kind of short-range supply line is like a spider, dense and widespread throughout the country, and its inefficient and rigid level can be said to be unseen by the ancients and never seen after the latter.

Imagine that if more than a dozen prefectures and counties are separated from each other and supply in fixed quantities, it is inevitable that some prefectures and counties will not be able to pay the quota on time due to various reasons, and other states and counties will not be obliged to make up for the shortfall, so the state will always have insufficient supply, even though it is capable. In this kind of situation, it is impossible to make any changes. Therefore, in the 200 years since the founding of the country, the financial crisis caused by it has not been solved at all.

However, the presentation of the article compilation method has provided a golden opportunity to solve this chronic disease, so that the central government's total revenue and expenditure is no longer just a slogan. In the second year of Wanli, the household department set up the "National Money and Grain General Division, referred to as the "Degree Branch General Division", which was appointed by the household department Shangshu Wang Guoguang and the Nanjing household department Shangshu Tao Da was appointed as the elder brother, and set up the north and south general warehouses in the two capitals and set up sub-libraries in all provinces in the country.

It is stipulated that the tax money collected by the provinces, except for the part that is prescribed to be the cost of the premises, shall be sent to the sub-treasury in advance, and shall not be withheld by themselves.

According to the regulations, the provincial sub-treasury shall summarize the silver and money accounts to the household department before October each year, and the household department will coordinate and distribute them after the next year's budget.

Fu stomach investment comprador, referred to as "bidding" and "procurement", is a kind of government procurement behavior. However, the "procurement" that existed at the beginning of the country was a direct transaction between the government and the peasants or producers, and it did not go through the merchant process, and it was not often produced. Because most of the materials needed by the government are directly collected from the common people in the form of tribute. In short, before the middle of Jiajing, any form of government procurement was only accidental, very designed, and did not form a scale.

In the past 50 years, the status and role of the commodity economy in the entire social economy have been markedly improved. This has made a significant difference, with a massive influx of supplies into the market. Not only the Suzhou and Hangzhou silks that are exported to Europe, the Songjiang cotton cloth that is clothed all over the world, and the Jingdezhen porcelain that is more expensive than gold, but also those grains, cotton, sericulture, tea, etc., which were originally produced for their own use in the era of agricultural economy.

Indigo, fruits, etc. have entered the market one after another and have become commodities. These commodities are abundant and good, and the more concubines stab Jiji, the production of the common people has improved from more and more complete, and has progressed to less and fine. This kind of social division of labor has increased the value of production and enhanced the exchange of goods and services in various localities.

In addition to Nanjing, Suzhou, Songjiang, Hangzhou and other old commercial centers, there are many medium-sized commercial towns such as Shengze Town and Shuangyang City in Wujiang, and Fuse Town and Changle City in Zhejiang, and the commercial towns are widely in the southeast. In the north, Beijing is the mainstay, with medium-sized cities such as Hejian, Linqing, Kaifeng, Xi'an, and Taiyuan, as well as towns such as Yuncheng and Zhangde, which are connected with the commerce of the south to form a huge commercial network that covers the whole country. Merchants pass through it, freight goes north and south, and each town is both a concentration of commodities and a center of exchange for commodities. Therefore, goods can be bought from the market regardless of the location. Especially in the central cities, although there are no industrial handicrafts of their own, there are many shops in the city, and merchants gather goods from all over the world to sell here, and they can do everything they want.

In stark contrast, the strict household registration system at the beginning of the country collapsed, and the military households did not exist in name only, but the various artisans responsible for the production of the government also fled, and these people changed their names and surnames in the big cities to join the ranks of commercial production. The disappearance of government-run workshops has made it even more difficult for the government to directly collect the materials needed for the government.

These new economic phenomena have had a tremendous impact on the various policies and methods of the government, and some of the old conventional practices have fallen in place, and some new methods have been placed in the tide of the commodity economy, and many officials have deeply felt that the collection of various goods from the government and their transportation are not only worried and tired, but also often punished for various reasons, and they hope to borrow the powerful power of the merchants to easily complete their tasks.

By the last years of Jiajing, merchants had become an important force in controlling the social economy. Most of the inhabitants of the major cities are businessmen, and the remaining half are employers who work for merchants, and the entire city economy has been controlled by merchants. A wealthy businessman with a family of 10,000 assets is like a carp crossing the river, and only those with a family of 10,000 can be called extremely rich. The other 2, 300,000, can only be called Zhongjiaer.

11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111 In particular, merchants were good at dealing with government and local powers, and the richer they were, the more powerful they became, which made them not as free to be driven by the peasants.

Especially after Jiajing, the call of "raising scholars with businessmen and protecting merchants with scholars" has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people in the past ten years, and the merchants in various provinces have generally followed the example of Jin merchants, and invested a lot of money they earned into local schools, subsidized scholars, sponsored literary associations, and gifted scribes has become the norm Pounding the bones and exhausting them, so that everyone is ruined and fleeing to death one after another" There will also be officials who write in a sympathetic tone, what "tens of thousands of gold families, all dàng are sold out, so they throw themselves into the river and pass through the blasphemy, and the sour nose is not the poison of the cool officials?" It was as if all the businessmen were going to go bankrupt overnight.

And the old people are not on the side of the government, the mainstream image of this year's generation of abandoned people is still the appearance of Confucian businessmen who are squandering money and righteousness, they use a very large part of the money to build bridges and pave roads, and help the victims, so that the old people will never forget their good ...... This was especially evident in the subsequent uproar.

Because the common people are far from the moment of awakening, they still worship the landlords and squires who directly cut them as gods. Not to mention businessmen with more covert means......

In such an environment, it is absolutely impossible for the government to drive businessmen without paying.

As a result, officials have been trying to increase their money income. In the first year of orthodoxy, the land endowment in the seven southeastern provinces was converted into silver and taxed, which represented the change of the government's expectations and policies. Soon, all taxes other than the field were gradually replaced by silver. Until a whip law came out, the tax in kind was completely abolished, and only silver money was levied on the common people. The warehouse of the government is no longer full of all kinds of physical objects, but instead of white silver taels. Officials can finally buy a wider range of goods from the market.

However, it is obviously extremely inconvenient and inappropriate for the government to send people directly to the market to buy goods of various names...... The doctors who don't say anything come to bargain with the people, and they really have a share, and they don't have the patience.

As a result, another widely adopted form is the "comprador of investment promotion, that is, looking for a middleman between government procurement and market supply, and the government only contacts the middleman", and all the materials needed are procured by the intermediary and transported to the designated address. This kind of middleman is called "compradors", and they are generally wealthy businessmen, and the scale of procurement is even more varied, including all kinds of things, from grain to clothing, from ink to charcoal, as long as it is needed by the government, all of them can be used to attract investment.

The comprador businessman who wins the bid can get a guarantee ticket issued by the household department, which can be cashed with the ticket after the designated materials are transported to the designated address. However, the credibility of the government has long been bankrupt, and "the merchants are worried that they will get nothing after completing their errands, so they squatted under the courtesy of the government." They said that they hoped that the government would deposit the money in advance into Huilian or Riyilong, and if promised, they could also deposit a guarantee money. When the time comes, complete the errand and withdraw the money with the ticket. If it is overdue, be willing to be punished.

After the financial power is collected, the local government is certainly freed from the heavy task of retrieving, but the opportunity to get oil from it is also lost. Even if there is a mountain of the test law, the officials will rebel.

This is the reason why Shen Mo knew that there was a fire consumption, but he didn't make any regulations. For this kind of style that has no name of cross-levial, but has the reality of dark fishing profits, it is naturally much more elegant and simple than the style of "drenching the tip and kicking the huh, which is difficult and poked, and has to be resold in conjunction with the jiān merchants, which is naturally much more elegant and simple, and naturally meets the appetite of the officials.

There is a fire to feed, and the officials at the county level are naturally satisfied. But for the feudal officials, they have never needed to kick and sell grain by themselves, and naturally they have to respect real money, so the fire is not consumed, and it has no meaning to them. What they care about is the shrinking of the power in their hands as the financial power is gained. Especially for those wealthy provinces, they used to do whatever they wanted, and they never looked at the faces of the households. The household department, in turn, has to beg them, please do well, and give two more big money to turn around.

Now once the financial power is handed over, it becomes them begging their grandfather to sue their grandmother, and the grandson of the household department becomes an uncle, do you want the governors of the provinces to be willing?

Silence prepared another great gift for them, and that was the decentralization of administrative power. To put it simply, there are three points: first, to change the governor-general to the governor of the premises, second, to re-establish the administrative structure of the premises, and third, to decentralize some of the appointment and dismissal powers. This is really appetizing for the governors of various provinces, Shen Ge is worthy of being everyone's intimate person, and he knows our needs too well.

Although in the eyes of ordinary people, the supreme head of a province is the governor general, and they are indeed performing the duties of the head of a province. However, if you open a directory of Ming officials, you will find that in the structure of the officials of the premises, the political envoy, the envoy according to the procurator, and the commander are the supreme lords, and there is no shadow of the governor or governor at all.

This is because Emperor Taizu, in order to avoid the dictatorship of his courtiers, removed the prime minister in the central government, and the government of Zhongshu Province was divided into six ministries. In terms of premises, the provinces were also abolished, and the powers of the provinces were divided into three, and the political envoys were appointed to be in charge of the political affairs of a province, and the affairs of the provincial punishment were impeached according to the criminal names of the procurators: the capital was placed in command of the envoys and was responsible for the military affairs of a province. The three do not belong to each other. Restrain each other so as not to be disadvantaged by the weight of the premises. But just as the central government could not do without the leadership of the prime minister, and later the cabinet was presented, the three divisions of the premises were unscrupulous with each other, and it was difficult to solve problems, so there was the appearance of the governor and the governor.

Governor and governor are two verbs, which are different from noun official names such as "Shangshu" and "Bu political envoy", which obviously have the meaning of temporary dispatch. The governor means that when there is a major disaster and civil unrest, and it is necessary to unify the forces of the whole province to level the time, the state will send the governor to the premises, and the matter is finished, so there is no fixed number, let alone a full-time job. But then there were more and more things in the provinces, and the former governor did not go back, but the latter came again, so that the powers of the governors overlapped again. In the fifth year of Xuande, the first batch of permanent governors was born, and a generation of famous ministers Yu Qian was among them.

The Governor was later presented, as the Governor became more and more civilian, and the various uprisings and rebellions did not care about the provincial borders, and often moved from province to province. It is inevitable that the provinces will pass the buck and work together, so there will be an errand of the governor's military affairs in several provinces. However, for the border areas of Huguang, Liangguang, Guizhou, Sichuan, Jiliao, Sanbian, and Xuanda, war and chaos were normalized, and the permanent governors appeared as needed