Jiao Fang, Wang Qiong, Wang Shouren and Zhang Cai, they are the main forces of Zhou Chong to promote reform, and now they are all in place, but in the matter of how to reform, it is not Zhou Chong who has the final say, after all, although he understands the shortcomings of the Ming Dynasty, but in the matter of how to reform, there is no detailed charter, which requires everyone to work together to discuss a specific reform process.

In the side hall of King Zhao's mansion, Zhou Zhong looked at Jiao Fang and the others sitting on both sides, and took the lead in speaking: "Everyone is also clear about the situation of Daming, one is the law, the other is the rule of officials, these two aspects have become the fatal wounds of Daming, if you want Daming's dragon to really take off, you must remove these two fatal wounds, I don't know what everyone thinks about this, although you boldly say it, after all, I came to discuss this matter with you today, even if the consideration is not perfect, you can also use everyone's strength to supplement it." ”

As soon as Zhou Chong's words fell, he saw Wang Qiong immediately stand up and said: "Lord, the matter of changing the law is very important, especially the reform of the law of the ancestors, it is even more difficult, throughout the history of all dynasties, if you want to change the law successfully, the first must have the support of the superiors, we don't have to worry about this, the second is that we need a group of effective law changers, it is far from enough to rely on us alone, there must be a group of officials who can resolutely implement the law change in all aspects, so if you want to change the law, you must clean up the officials, Put some capable people into the various departments of the court, so the minister feels that the rule of the Qing officials should be put before the law is changed! ”

Zhou Zhong also secretly praised Wang Qiong's words, and he also felt that he wanted to change the law of the Ming Dynasty. It is necessary to have a group of competent people. Otherwise, it's just a few of them. It is impossible to complete the reform of the law, and it is even very likely to be like Wang Anshi in history, because of the ineffective use of people, the result is that the law that benefits the people becomes the law that harms the people.

Wang Shouren and others, like Zhou Chong, also agreed with Wang Qiong's views, but the elderly Jiao Fang raised his own objections and said: "Although what Lord Wang said is good, it is a little inappropriate!" ”

"Oh? Please also ask Mr. Jiao for advice! Wang Qiong smiled calmly. Although his own personal morality is dirty, he likes to drill upwards. But he is not a complete villain like Zhang Cai, but he is very personable in other aspects, which is why he can become one of the three ministers of the Ming Dynasty.

"I don't dare to point out, but the old man thinks there are some problems." I saw Jiao Fang also smiled and said, "The old man also thinks that it should be the case before the rule of the Qing officials, but Lord Wang has not thought about it, if the prince presides over the cleaning up of the officials, with the current situation of the Ming Dynasty, he will definitely offend most of the officials." Although these officials may not dare to show it openly, it will be when the law is changed in the future. These officials do not contribute to their work, and even secretly engage in ghosts, won't they repeat what Wang Anshi changed the law back then? ”

The current status quo of officialdom in the Ming Dynasty is that there are no officials and no greed, even if they are young people who have just entered the officialdom and are full of ambition to be a good official for the country and the people, but after they have stayed in the big dye vat of officialdom for a few years, they will find that if they do not accept those ordinary practices in the officialdom, then they will be rejected by all officials, let alone for the country and the people, I am afraid that in the end they will not even be able to keep their official positions, so in this case, most of them will choose to go along with the dirt, such as Wang Qiong and Jiao Fang and others in front of Zhou Chong, They all came from that step, and even now they receive some common practices every year such as ice charcoal filial piety, which have become the rules of officialdom and everyone must abide by them.

Regarding the problem mentioned by Jiao Fang, Zhou Chong also had an idea before, but he suddenly said at this time: "Jiao Ge Lao, for the current situation in the Ming officialdom, this king also knows very well, but this king thinks that not everyone likes to be greedy for money, the reason why the current situation is that no one is not greedy, the fundamental reason is that the Ming officials' income is too low, if an official only lives on the income, I am afraid that the whole family will have to starve, so this king thinks that it is possible to increase the income of officials, and then put an end to those regular incomes, At that time, the legal income of the officials will not be much less than before, just like the previous implementation of the king in the governor's palace, so that a large number of officials can be prevented from being greedy for ink. ”

In addition to the imperial court's Yulu, the Governor's Office also has generous subsidies, which are also regarded as the legitimate income of officials, and the Yulu and subsidies are uniformly distributed, eliminating other gray income of officials. And after taking the subsidy, you must not be greedy anymore, otherwise don't blame Zhou Zhong for being polite. This method has worked well, after all, the subsidy given by Zhou Zhong is not less than the usual silver they used to receive, and with this legal income, most officials will not risk collecting those gray incomes.

However, there are two shortcomings of Zhouzhong's method, the first is that it costs money, before the Governor's Mansion of the Four Seas had a lot of income, so it can be supported, and now if it is implemented in the entire Ming Dynasty, it will bring a lot of pressure to the treasury, but now that the Ming Dynasty is rich, it is not impossible to achieve. The second one is not about any shortcomings, although Zhou Chong put an end to the officials secretly greedy for ink, but it is not without loopholes, such as Zhang Cai, this guy, he instructed his relatives to run the sea trade, and used his position to master a lot of information, and as a result, he made a lot of money, this kind of thing cannot be eliminated in later generations, and Zhou Chong has no way to do it for the time being.

Hearing Zhou Zhong mention the methods implemented in the Governor's Mansion before, Jiao Fang and Wang Shouren both fell into contemplation, and after a while, they saw Wang Shouren speak: "Lord, it is also a way to improve the income of officials, but there are relatively few officials in the Governor's Palace, and it can be uniformly issued and supervised, but if it is implemented in the entire Ming Dynasty, not to mention anything else, the unified distribution of Yulu alone is a big problem, if it comes out of the treasury, then the transportation is very inconvenient, if it comes out of the locality, It is necessary to let the local government intercept a part of the tax revenue, so that it is very convenient for local officials to be greedy for these taxes, so if this problem is not solved, it will only become empty talk if you want to raise the income! ”

"This ......" Zhou Zhong couldn't help but have a headache when he heard this, the Ming Dynasty is not the future generations, there is no such convenient transportation as the later generations, plus the current currency is copper coins and silver, transportation alone is a big problem, it is very difficult to unify the distribution of officials' money, if it cannot be uniformly issued, then it is very difficult to supervise, which will bring great convenience to the corruption of officials, even if it is compulsory, I am afraid that the effect will be very limited.

How did the future generations solve this problem? Zhou Zhong asked secretly in his heart, after coming to Daming for so many years, although his memory of the future life is still very clear, he has less and less to recall, and even sometimes he has forgotten his identity as a traverser, but regards himself as a real Daming person.

"Bank!" Zhou Zhong suddenly said, after the search in the later generations forgotten, he finally thought of a way to solve the problem of the unified distribution of officials, that is, to open a bank, to be precise, the establishment of a central bank of the Ming Dynasty, and then use the central bank to integrate the existing money of the Ming Dynasty, in the future, the Ming Dynasty will issue the money to the officials around the country, and only need to send the money to the corresponding bank, and then these money banks will naturally use their own channels to distribute to the hands of officials around the country.

Thinking of this, Zhou Zhong is also very excited, Daming's money business has formed a considerable scale, such as Beijing, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Guangzhou and other major cities have various businesses to open the bank, but the north generally calls it the silver number, and the south calls it the money bank, in essence there is no difference, the business mainly has deposits, releases, foreign exchange, the issuance of bank bills and exchange, it can be said that has formed the prototype of the bank in the future, the only difference is that there is no government agency to supervise its court, As a result, there are many difficulties in the circulation of tickets between banks, and there is a lack of communication between each bank, except for a few individual banks that trust each other to exchange tickets, the tickets issued by each other can only be exchanged in the same bank.

In addition, the role of the bank is not limited to this, with the development of industry and commerce in the Ming Dynasty, the circulation of money is becoming more and more important, the lack of copper in the Ming Dynasty before, resulting in the lack of copper money in the Ming Dynasty, but with the occupation of Nanyang and other places by Zhou Chong, several large copper mines were soon discovered, among which the copper mines on the Luzon side alone are enough for the Ming Dynasty to mint money, coupled with the mining of silver mines in the stone of the Ming Dynasty, so that the silver and copper of the Ming Dynasty as currency are no longer lacking, but these two metals are very heavy, and it is very inconvenient to circulate, For example, if a merchant wants to go to another place to buy goods, he needs to bring a large amount of silver or copper coins, which is not only inconvenient, but also very unsafe, but with a bank, there is no need to worry about this problem.

Of course, the above is only the function of ordinary banks, if Zhou Zhong can establish the central bank of the Ming Dynasty, then you can supervise the business of ordinary banks, so that the money or silver number of the Ming Dynasty is transformed into a regular bank, and the Ming can also use some financial means through the bank, so as to carry out macroeconomic regulation and control of the country's economy, which is definitely a major event of great significance for the whole country.

Thinking of this, Zhou Chong immediately told his idea of the central bank, but after Wang Qiong and Jiao Fang and others listened, they were all dumbfounded, although they all felt that Zhou Chong's idea was a little unbelievable, but if they thought about it carefully, they found that maybe this method was indeed feasible, although they didn't quite understand how the central bank regulated the economy of the Ming Dynasty, but at least in the unified distribution of money to officials, it was completely possible. (To be continued......)