Xue Huan, the prime minister in the cabinet, although he has not seemed to have any particularly conspicuous performance over the years, and has not been as uproarious as Bi Yutong back then, but in this kind of quiet, and even without making a big move, he has been able to handle many government affairs of the empire in an orderly and orderly manner, and firmly control a huge cabinet, and at the same time, the empire's economy has always maintained a relatively stable development rate.

After Xue Huan came to power, the total industrial output value has increased many times, and on a national scale, the gross national product has maintained a growth rate of about 10 percent year after year, and in some years it has even reached more than 15 percent.

You must know that the empire is a huge country, and the current empire's economic main body is still mainly agriculture, and the industrial output value accounts for only about 10% of the empire's total national product.

Generally speaking, the agricultural economy is relatively stable or fixed, unless it is a natural or man-made disaster, otherwise the agricultural output value of the whole country will generally remain at a relatively stable value, and at the same time, the agricultural economy occupies the main body of the imperial economy, so it is difficult to imagine that the empire's economy can be expected to achieve a growth rate of 10 or even 15 percent under this big background.

The gross national product should be increased by 10 percent, and when the overall growth rate of the agricultural economy is limited, the main pressure falls on the secondary and tertiary industries, and the growth requirements for these two major industries are not 10 percent, but 50 percent or even 100 percent.

The growth of the gross national product is also directly reflected in the central fiscal revenue.

From 1865 onwards, the central government of the empire maintained a relatively steady increase in revenue, hovering around 6 to 15 percent per year, with slight variations depending on the year.

The increase in fiscal revenue still comes mainly from the secondary and tertiary industries.

The most obvious of these is the sharp increase in tariffs, which are subject to taxation on both imports and exports. The larger the total volume of this international trade, the more taxes were collected, and the Customs Department, which belongs to the Ministry of Finance, declared in its report that in 1871 customs duties had increased by about seven percent over 1870, and that the collection of customs duties was mainly concentrated in the three major customs offices of Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Tianjin.

The gross national product (GNP) and the central government's fiscal revenue have increased steadily. This has fully proved that the cabinet under the leadership of Xue Huan has been successful.

So don't look at Xue Huan's relatively low-key weekdays, but his political achievements are still relatively outstanding, and this is also the reason why Lin Zhe values him.

After Xue Huan, Jiang Daoquan in the cabinet was also the same, still calling himself a conservative, of course, this conservatism did not mean that he opposed some industrial and commercial reforms carried out by the empire, he only opposed some specific practices, such as when he strongly opposed Bi Yutong and Xue Huan and others to promote large-scale farms on rural land. The practice of converting tenant farmers to hired farmers.

Then in other matters, such as his essential work education, with the industrialization of the empire, the knowledge of modernization gradually penetrated into every strata of society, and many people began to shout that the empire only needed physics and chemistry, and no longer needed those poetry and articles, and said that the state employee examination still included scripture and historical theory in the compulsory examination, and occupied a large space is a kind of complacent. Or even a regressive act.

They called for non-practical subjects such as classics and history to be considered only optional subjects in entrance examinations or examinations for state employees. The emphasis is on physical chemistry.

And this move was severely opposed and even cracked down on by Jiang Daoquan.

For a person like Jiang Daoquan, who stands by traditional morality, although he acknowledges that Western-style science can strengthen the country and enrich the people, he still believes that Confucianism is the foundation of life.

Lin Zhe also supports Jiang Daoquan at this point, and now there is some confusion in the empire about the trend of thought in education, and there is a kind of historical debate about whether middle school or Western learning is useful in the late Qing Dynasty. At the same time, it also debated with the early computer era of later generations whether to simply abandon Chinese and directly use pinyin.

These waves are unnecessary for Lin Zhe!

Besides, he thinks differently from many people, ordinary people or officials think about strengthening the country and enriching the people, but what is his Lin Zhe's priority?

It is the stability of imperial power. Especially the solidity of his own power.

In order to rule a country, especially a monarchy, it is still necessary to have a large number of officials from Confucianism, and the traditional Confucian ideas of loyalty and filial piety still need to be vigorously promoted.

Unlike Jiang Daoquan, Guo Longyun, who has now been promoted to the post of Associate Minister of the Cabinet and concurrently serves as the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, is a very typical doer in the empire, and many of his remarks have a similar concept, that is, everything is practical first, and what is useful can be used.

And he and Jiang Daoquan are each other's biggest enemies, and they often fall out over certain things, and every now and then, Xue Huan will adjust the contradictions between them, and finally turn things in the direction that Xue Huan wants.

These three carriages of the cabinet, and some of the people behind them, make up the main political factions in the empire at present.

Of course, the empire, as a traditional monarchy, has always been very disgusted with the fact that courtiers form parties for personal gain, so there is no clear boundary between these political factions, let alone those parties in the republic, but no one dares to openly say that they are courting people and then for a certain faction.

If there is such a person, he will not be able to get up and enter the cabinet, and he will not survive the next day if he is lucky enough to enter the cabinet.

However, on the surface it is one thing, but in private it is another thing, the imperial political arena is a society composed of people, and people will always have selfish intentions, so it is inevitable for each dynasty to form a party for personal gain.

And Lin Zhe often turns a blind eye to the gangs and factions of his ministers, as long as he doesn't engage in rebellion or anything, as long as it doesn't affect the stability of the empire's political arena, he generally doesn't care.

But if the power of a certain faction increases greatly and breaks the balance of power in the political arena, then Lin Zhe will not sit idly by at that time, just like when he cleaned up the remainders, he will directly intervene with thunderous means and then uproot.

It is normal to have mountains inside, and what Lin Zhe has to do is to ensure that there are several opposing mountains at the same time, and then let them maintain a balance of strength between them to avoid a situation where one side sits big.

Over the years, Lin Zhe has implemented this balancing strategy, and he often only looks at the political struggles between his courtiers, and when they come up with the results, Lin Zhe generally follows the trend, and it doesn't matter whether those guys who failed in the political struggle are wronged.

The risk of the profession of officials is relatively large, and when it is still at the grassroots level, it is intrigues, and if it fails at that time, it may not be able to get up, but when it reaches the level of prefect and Taoist, the losing side of this struggle often ends in dismissal or even imprisonment, which can be described as extremely cruel.

And after reaching the level of the cabinet, it is relatively safe, at least personal safety is guaranteed, because in the struggle, Lin Zhe, the boss, is directly watching, if the winning side is too much for the losing side, and wants to dominate the court, then there is no need to wait for his political opponents, Lin Zhe will directly clean them up.

Therefore, the struggle between temples and halls, on the contrary, is safer, and the struggle between these cabinet bosses is often based on the life and death of their subordinates to divide the victory and defeat, and it is rarely said that it will affect the cabinet bosses themselves, but once it is affected, then it is a big deal.

Now Lin Zhe looked at the fold in his hand, his face was very ugly, this is a letter of impeachment, it was handed over by the political envoy of Jiangxi, and the impeachment was his own immediate boss Jiangxi Governor, if this is the case, it will be forgotten, at most it is just the provincial government leadership engaged in infighting, and in the end it is often the organization department that transfers one of them and ends up.

However, at the end of the excerpt, it is written that the governor of Jiangxi has paid a huge bribe, and the bribe is not to anyone else, but Guo Longyun, the assistant minister of the cabinet and the acting minister of industry and commerce, and the amount of bribes is quite huge, and the amount of bribes has reached one million.

Seeing this fold, Lin Zhe's face became a little gloomy, and then his fingers began to tap on the table, what made his face gloomy was not that someone impeached Guo Longyun for accepting bribes of one million, what he cared about was that someone dared to give him a secret fold so directly and blatantly, and impeached Guo Longyun, and the person who made this excerpt was still a high-ranking official like a political envoy.

Behind this impeachment letter, there must be a huge political struggle.

If it weren't for the coming political storm, there would be no fool, especially if it was a high-ranking official of this level who blatantly impeached Guo Longyun, one of the three elders in the political arena.

He put down his fold and snorted coldly, he wanted to see who in the imperial political arena had such great energy that he could hide from himself and set off a political struggle. (To be continued.) )