Due to Li Yongji's early beating, Shen Shiming, the new prime minister, took office in a very low-key manner, not only did he not beat gongs and drums in front of the door, but even did not see any visitors, but only went to work and leave work in the State Council on time.

Even when he was at work, he drank tea and read books alone in the prime minister's office most of the time, and he usually didn't like to associate with other cabinet members, and he was extremely cautious in his words and deeds, and he didn't express his opinions.

Once another colleague comes to ask him about official business, he usually listens to you first, and when you are done, he talks about the matter before he talks about it, and then he continues to look down and drink tea.

Although this kind of grinding foreign work made many people breathe a sigh of relief, it caused the dissatisfaction of Vice Minister Wang Tao.

Wang Tao is now both vice minister of the cabinet and minister of education, and he is a middle-aged man with great ambitions, who is bent on doing great things, in other words, he is full of momentum, otherwise the reform of the imperial examination will not be impressive.

To put it simply, Wang Tao is a capable and ambitious man, bent on making a big splash in the nascent Chinese Empire and becoming a celebrity through the ages.

It is because of this ambition that when he heard that Li Yongchang had resigned, his heart warmed up, because he looked at the cabinet and seemed to have the highest qualifications and abilities, so the position of prime minister was his.

However, the emperor did not choose him in the end, but chose someone he had almost never heard of to be the prime minister, which naturally made him very disappointed.

However, after some inquiry, Wang Tao was relieved, after all, according to the news he heard, Shen Shiming and Li Yongji had been much earlier than him, and he was responsible for taking care of the imperial property before, so it should be an insider, so he had nothing to say.

Originally, he wanted to accept his fate, but Shen Shiming's work attitude really made him uncomfortable, after all, compared to his predecessor. The new prime minister has gone a little too lazy.

I think that at the beginning, when Li Yongchang was the prime minister, even if he was the emperor's own brother, he always came early and returned late, and often held cabinet meetings to discuss various things with everyone.

It can be said that when Lee Yong-chang was prime minister. Everyone admires him, but this is good, in terms of identity, he is at most an opportunistic house slave, but the shelf is not small, after coming to the State Department, he always plays by himself behind closed doors, and he does not interact with his colleagues much, and even cabinet meetings are rarely held.

Well, it doesn't matter, but a lot of things can't get around the prime minister. Because there are some executive orders that must be stamped with the Prime Minister's seal before they can be officially implemented, otherwise the people below will not follow them.

It is true that in order to emphasize efficiency and discipline, the administrative organs of the Chinese Empire paid attention to recognizing India rather than people. That is to say, when the officials of the lower-level institutions carry out the order, no matter who gives the order, it only depends on whether you have the relevant administrative documents and whether the administrative documents have been stamped with the relevant seals.

Among them. The emperor's seal is naturally the highest level, as long as the emperor's seal is added, it is a journey all the way. is the highest priority.

There is only one seal of the emperor of the Chinese Empire, and there are not so many messy twenty-five treasures of the Son of Heaven and the like, but only one is engraved with eight big characters of "The Great Seal of the Emperor of the Chinese Empire" in traditional Chinese, and there are also seals prepared of gold with complex patterns around it.

The reason why jade is not used, but gold is used is because compared to jade, gold is less likely to be damaged, and the seal itself is not large, so it can be carried around and used at any time.

In addition, there are also relevant laws and regulations on the seal of the Emperor of the Chinese Empire, which are written into the constitution of the Supreme People's Court.

For example, what are the responsibilities of the emperor's seal, what are the functions, and what are the penalties for counterfeiting the emperor's seal, etc., all of which are stipulated in detailed legal provisions.

Because this emperor seal can be used on various occasions and is almost omnipotent, it is also called the universal seal.

But it is precisely because the emperor's seal is almost a universal seal and the matter is very important, so the punishment for counterfeiting is also extremely severe.

According to the provisions of the Supreme People's Court, those who counterfeit the emperor's seal are guilty of complicity in treason, and all relevant persons shall be executed within three days after the judgment takes effect, regardless of their identity or reason.

At the same time, all the families of the convicts within the nine clans must be arrested, strictly interrogated, and sentenced to immediate death or fixed-term imprisonment of not less than 20 years according to how much knowledge they have.

In other words, if you are a family member of the Nine Clans of a criminal who has forged the Emperor's seal, even if you don't know it, you will be sentenced to at least 20 years in prison, and you can only be found not guilty unless you report it to the state before you are officially arrested.

It can be said that this is quite a strict punishment.

Even the emperor is like this, and the bureaucrats at all levels below are the same, usually there is only one official seal for a seat, that is, the universal seal, and the constitution also stipulates detailed legal provisions for the official seals of bureaucrats at all levels, giving different official seals different rights and obligations in the form of laws.

In other words, the risk of stealing official seals and impersonating officials has become greater, and the status of official seals has also been pulled higher, and there is only one universal seal to remove all kinds of messy seals, which can also speed up administrative efficiency.

To get back to the point, as far as the government level is concerned, under the emperor, the most powerful person is the prime minister, and in the absence of the emperor's seal, the text stamped with the prime minister's seal can be said to be the highest pass for all the way.

Although according to the Constitution, the Supreme Court is at the same level as the Supreme Senate and the State Council, but for the members of the cabinet, especially the prime minister, except for the emperor who can appoint and dismiss him, no one in any other institution has the right to point fingers at the prime minister.

This is because it is too difficult to remove the prime minister, and you must first gather enough evidence to submit it to the House of Representatives, which will then formally hold hearings to discuss and pass the impeachment bill, and then the speaker of the House of Representatives will propose to the Senate.

Then the Senate receives the impeachment motion, and it has to hold another hearing, discuss and negotiate again, and then submit the impeachment motion to the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court will hold a formal trial, and after the court pleading, the final verdict will be handed down to the emperor.

The emperor read the Supreme Court's verdict and was also informed that he would issue another executive order to remove the prime minister and a qiē privilege. and then send it back to the court, and accept the prosecution as a white person, that is, an ordinary person, usually followed by various criminal laws, civil laws and other crimes, so that you will be imprisoned or even sentenced to death.

The above is the way to bring down the prime minister in a procedurally correct way, and you can imagine how difficult it is.

Of course, the problem can actually be very simple, that is, to sue the emperor directly, and assume that the emperor sees that you are dissatisfied. If you want to be dismissed, then you will usually be automatically resigned, if you don't know how to lift, it is very simple to go through the procedure, as long as the emperor reveals a meaning, all the procedures will go all the way, there will be no difficulty, and what crime you want to give what crime.

From this point of view, although the Chinese Empire engaged in the separation of the four provinces under the emperor. Mutual restraint, but in essence it is still a dictatorship that sells dog meat on the head of a sheep, and it is still the rule of man.

However, it is also beneficial to say that Li Yongji's system is also beneficial. That is to set up a procedural obstacle, once the emperor's authority is not as strong as Li Yongji, then the role of the separation of powers will be officially revealed, and in this way. Even if Li Yongji's descendants are not successful, it will not affect the operation of the empire, at least maintain the system of the empire.

For example, there is a clause in the Constitution. Once the senators feel that the emperor is incompetent, or even suspected of treason, they can submit a motion to impeach the emperor, of course, the process of impeaching the emperor is more complicated and difficult to understand, but there is such a rule after all.

In other words, Li Yongji's system can play both the dictatorship of an absolute monarchy and the people's cooking of a constitutional monarchy, and the magic of its application depends entirely on the development of the times.

It is precisely because of this that the authority of the prime minister is very heavy, and the prime minister has the final say in the politics, military, and foreign affairs of a country other than the Royal Praetorian Guard, the parliament, and the courts.

Then, once the prime minister is mediocre, many of the country's decrees will inevitably come to a standstill and cannot be implemented smoothly, which is what Wang Tao is most unaccustomed to.

The simplest and most intuitive point to say that the prime minister has great power is that the prime minister is stuck with funds.

Although the Empire has a Ministry of Finance that is in charge of the Empire's financial approvals and budgets, in addition to the prescribed expenses such as official salaries, if you ask for additional funds, you must ask the Prime Minister to sign and seal them, otherwise you will not have to pay for them.

Wang Tao is now promoting the reform of the imperial examination everywhere and building new schools everywhere, just when he needs money, but at this time the Ministry of Finance told him that he could not give money because there was no prime minister's consent.

And when Wang Tao went to Prime Minister Shen Shiming to ask for funds, Shen Shiming listened to a lot, but in the end, it was just a rediscussion, and there was no news after that.

After doing this once, twice, three or four times, Wang Tao's and Shen Shiming became more and more popular, and then he simply thought of suing the emperor.

It is not easy to sue the emperor now, Li Yongji is not in Yonghua Palace at present, he is still training in the tiger's den in Tiger Hill, and he can't see anyone at all, and he can only use the guò wireless phone to find him.

The problem is that at present, in the State Council, except for the prime minister, who has a direct telephone number that can be directly addressed to Li Yongji himself, other people can only call the Royal Secretariat of the Ministry of Internal Affairs first, and then you report your message to the secretary on duty at the secretariat, and the secretary on duty will then convey it to the emperor, and the emperor will choose to talk to you directly according to the secretary's report, or pass the order to the secretary, or even shelve the order.

In other words, at present, except for the Prime Minister, no one else in the State Council can talk to the emperor directly, but can only convey it to the secretary on duty, and how the emperor contacts you depends on the emperor's mood and the importance he attaches to you.

Fortunately, Wang Tao has a special identity, and he is also one of the senior members personally promoted by Li Yongji back then, and he is quite impressed, so he sued once, twice, three or four times, and he also contacted other cabinet members to sue together, which finally played a role.

That is to say, the collective complaint of the cabinet members finally made Emperor Li Yongji unable to ignore it, and began to call directly to ask Shen Shiming about his recent work.

"Let you be a low-key person and do things, but it doesn't make you slack off." Li Yongji said directly, "Let you focus on learning, it doesn't mean that you don't care about anything, you see, how long has you been in office?" With so many people suing you, how do you do it? ”

In this regard, Shen Shiming only replied respectfully: "Your Majesty, how dare you neglect your government because of the emperor's love, there is really another reason for this situation." ”

"Oh? I'd like to hear why. ”

"Your Majesty, and be relieved first, please report slowly. In fact, even if His Majesty doesn't ask, the minister has to take the time to report his recent experience to His Majesty recently. ”

Immediately afterwards, Shen Shiming began to explain the content of the complaint bit by bit, but it was an explanation, but because there were more things to be extended and more detailed, it was better to say that it was a work report.

According to Shen Shiming, after he became prime minister, although he commuted to and from work on time, he actually went home with materials and documents. After returning home, I continued to study and study.

Never seeing visitors or interacting with people, he had plenty of time to learn and understand the current administrative structure of the Empire, and by now he had a basic grasp of the bureaucracy and procedures of the government, and he had discovered many problems in it.

The reason why he didn't hold much cabinet meetings and asked other cabinet members to meet was because he felt that there was little point in holding meetings for the time being. It's a pure waste of time.

Because there is only one basic framework for the administrative organs of the empire now, but there is a shortage of people in all aspects, and many positions are only official positions but no one takes office, so even if a meeting is held to discuss a charter. Specific to the following implementation, it will not have much effect.

After all, the Chinese Empire pays attention to governing the country according to law, and according to Shen Shiming's understanding, he is a lawyer, and all officials' administrative actions have laws to follow. Although there are no specific legal provisions, there are still clear regulations on what level of function is in charge of how big things.

For example, the mayor is in charge of the city's affairs. The chief of the municipal police is in charge of the city's police station, and the director of the municipal finance bureau is only in charge of the city's financial affairs.

Originally, this is a good thing, and it can be clear about responsibilities and powers, and once something goes wrong, you can quickly find the relevant person in charge and avoid passing the buck to each other, which is called the official responsibility system.

At the same time as the official responsibility system, in order to avoid superfluous people and lazy administration, the administrative order time limit system was also implemented at the same time.

The so-called time-limited system for administrative orders refers to stipulating a time limit for the execution of orders according to the situation of different officials in different places, so as to speed up the efficiency of officials' execution of orders.

Specifically, for example, there are different time limits for an administrative document from the signing and entry into force by a superior official to the specific implementation of the official assigned to the lower level, or there is a limited buffer time.

If you perform official duties within the time limit and complete the order, it is good, if you can't complete it, or you don't perform official duties within the specified time, then you must give a reasonable explanation report, and if the explanation is not recognized by the boss, you will be punished, but whether you are recognized by the boss or not, you are one more stain on failing to complete the administrative task on time, this stain will be recorded, accompany your life, and affect your future performance evaluation.

In all fairness, the official responsibility system and the administrative efficiency time-limited system can indeed speed up administrative efficiency, so that officials at all levels do not dare to slack off, and usually rush to do it when they are ordered to do it, for fear that they will be punished if they are late, thus improving the efficiency of the government.

These two sets of systems can be said to have originated from Li Yongji's establishment at the earliest, but it was the first prime minister Li Yongchang who was finally formulated and implemented, which is also one of the systems that Li Yongchang is most proud of.

However, there are pros and cons to everything, and these two systems are essentially a kind of top-down urging system, coupled with the supervision and provocation of the internal affairs committees in various places, all middle- and lower-level officials usually do not think much about the actual situation and difficulties below when they receive orders from their superiors, but concentrate on enforcing the instructions of their superiors first, which will inevitably be a bit rigid and cause disharmony in some places.

Although there are not many problems now because there are few officials and few orders, there have been many conflicts between the government and the people because the administrative orders are too blunt.

The most typical and prominent problem is the problem of forced demolition and road construction.

Whether it is for the purpose of cash-for-work or to strengthen the ties between regions, Li Yongji has attached great importance to road construction from the very beginning, and his nine production and construction corps, except for one-third of the people who are engaged in urban construction, such as most of the Nanjing Construction Corps, almost two-thirds of the other two-thirds of the people are used to build roads, so they are essentially nine road construction troops.

Building roads is a good thing in itself, especially in the case of abundant finance, which can not only speed up infrastructure construction, but also improve people's livelihood, and strengthen national defense, which is a good thing to kill multiple birds with one stone, which is a very good policy in Shen Shiming's view.

However, because the road is too simple and straightforward, only emphasizing brevity, the route is almost always directly drawn from the map, and at most it is considered whether to go around the mountains and rivers. However, they did not consider how many villages and dwellings they would encounter in the middle, nor did they consider whether they should take a detour when they encountered dwellings, so in the process of road construction, there would inevitably be more conflicts between local residents.

To put it simply, the purpose of road construction is sixteen words: to detour the road in the mountains, build bridges in the water, see the house to demolish the house, and see the grave to fill the grave.

Although there are compensation payments, the amount of compensation varies and is usually based on the financial capacity of the local area and the economic situation of the evicted households.

And. In many places, especially in the case of ancestral graves, no money is given to move.

Originally, this kind of thing needed to be resolved through good negotiation, and the problem was actually not a big one, but because of the official responsibility system and the time-limited system of administrative orders, and because most of the officials of the new government of the Chinese Empire were opportunistic elements such as businessmen and petty officials, and they relied on the support of the police, they only cared about the orders of their superiors, and never cared about the life or death of the subordinates. If you want to encounter this kind of thing, you will directly use it to demolish.

It is conceivable that this kind of demolition of houses and graves will inevitably attract resistance from the simple people, and once the rebellion occurs. According to the regulations of the Imperial Government, rebellion was to be classified as conflict or rebellion depending on the nature of the matter and its effects.

To put it simply, the scale of the rebellion is small. If the number of villagers who violently resist the law is small, and the resistance is small, the punishment will be small. If the scale of resistance is large, and the resistance of the villagers is strong, then the punishment will be greater.

The punishment is graded in the form of the law, the lowest level is called the conflict between the government and the people, generally the first mediation, persuasion, this mediation period has a time limit, if the mediation period is not successful, then according to the situation to modify the decree or enforcement, but usually enforced, and the consequence of enforcement is to arrest the troublemakers, administrative detention ranging from 10 to 30 days. During the conflict, law enforcers may use limited force, that is, cold weapons, such as batons and shields, but they are not allowed to use lethal weapons, and the unauthorized use of lethal weapons is not punished.

At the higher level, it is called unrest, and unrest is usually the direct mobilization of the police to arrest and suppress it, first arresting people, and then talking about it, during which limited heat is usually used, such as rifles and pistols.

Once a rebellion is identified, the local garrison can participate in the suppression operation, using the highest force, such as artillery, to nip the rebellion in the bud.

The highest level, that is, rebellion, in this case, the surrounding garrisons can be mobilized, and even the Praetorian Guard can be mobilized to suppress it, and the means are naturally unlimited, and the punishment is also the highest, and usually the rebels cannot be forgiven.

There is no doubt that this set of things is similar to the cool law of the Qin Dynasty, at most because of the supervision of the internal affairs committee, because of the radio transmission, coupled with the power of thermal weapons, some unjust, false and wrongful convictions can be avoided, and the degree of repression is also stronger, and it is difficult for ordinary people to succeed in rebellion without the support of the main army.

For the time being, Li Yongji, as the emperor and the supreme commander of the national armed forces, from the main force of the Praetorian Guard, to the militia and police forces at all levels, are all hardcore royalists, so even if there are conflicts between the government and the people in the local area for various reasons, as long as there is a relevant administrative order, then even if he sympathizes with the other party, he must resolutely go forward to suppress it, which also allows the magistrates to be more unscrupulous.

Therefore, in this case, the repression caused by the construction of roads can be said to have never stopped, but the scale of the rebellion was relatively small, and most of them did not exceed the level of unrest.

Although after the suppression, it can play a warning role like killing chickens and monkeys, so that other villagers who encounter similar things do not dare to disobey the road construction army and obediently obey, but this situation usually occurs in the Jiangnan region, but it is different in the northern part of Shandong.

The people in northern Jiangsu and Shandong are fierce, and there is a great deal of resistance to road construction and forced demolition, and it often happens that the whole village simply becomes a bandit if they can't fight, so the result of forced road construction is that the local bandits have a tendency to gradually grow.

As the banditry grows, the new local government often raises the level of repression and uses stronger forces to suppress it, and in the long run, the local people's perception of the local government is getting worse and worse.

Although there are also local letters and visits bureaus, the locals do not dare to go to the letters and visits bureau to report the situation, and only want to travel long distances to sue the royal court, and the local officials generally try their best to block the royal complaints, which deepens the conflict between the government and the people.

Shen Shiming believes that if road construction is a necessary implementation and an unchangeable national policy, then in order to reduce the bad impact of the conflict between the government and the people, or to try not to darken the royal family and the imperial court. Localities should be given more buffer time so that they can have more ways to mediate and try not to have conflicts.

So, how do you give places more buffer time? Quite simply, if the previous policy cannot be changed, the higher authorities can only neglect the government, that is, they will not delegate power, and the local authorities will be more constrained.

To put it simply, once the local government encounters the contradictions caused by road construction, if it is to be raised to the level of turmoil. If a large police force is mobilized to suppress and use hot weapons, it is usually reported first, and the approval of the higher authorities is requested, and the higher authorities will also directly call the State Council and ask the State Council for approval to use police force to suppress it.

Then, if the State Council suppresses the local request for the use of force at this time and does not issue an approved administrative order, then the local police will not dare to mobilize a large force to suppress it. The magistrate had no choice but to continue to mediate and persuade.

There are two situations in this situation, either the local adjustment is successful or the adjustment is unsuccessful. And after giving everyone more time to understand the severity of things, if it still doesn't work, it makes sense to use force again.

However, considering the urine nature of the magistrate, Shen Shiming's method was to send the central cadres of the State Council to adjust. In fact, he's already doing it.

Don't look at him quietly and low-key in office, but the prime minister has a secretary, that is, the prime minister's staff. Like Wu Tingfang, he was born as a staff member.

The staff directly obeyed the orders of the prime minister, so when encountering this kind of thing, Shen Shiming directly sent his staff to understand the situation as a special envoy, mediate the dispute, or try to make a detour, or give higher compensation appropriately, but it was really impossible to use force again.

Of course, the progress of road construction during this period cannot be slowed down, because the road repair of the construction team does not care about those, it is operated independently, and usually in the face of this kind of army-like construction troops, the local villagers do not dare to stop it, and their usual practice is to cry with the magistrate afterwards.

The reason why the magistrates were arrogant and tough on the victimized villagers was also because the local authorities could not control the construction corps, but the villagers were unyielding, so they directly threatened and intimidated.

At this time, if you send a central official similar to Qincha to mediate carefully and patiently, first talk about the importance of road construction in the general righteousness of the country and the nation, and then find some feng shui masters to flicker, and say how bad your original ancestral tomb or house is, how good the place you found again, and then raise a little compensation after the end, usually the common people will be happy.

In other words, the Chinese people at this time are actually very easy to fool, and they generally will not rebel unless they are forced to do so. So as long as you first press down on a righteous hat, then get a little feng shui master to fool around, and finally give a little more money to compensate, maybe bad things will become good things, and the extra compensation is nothing compared to the funds needed to mobilize the troops.

"Well, even if you're doing the right thing." Li Yongji said, "What about the school? Wang Tao has told me many times that there are regulations on education funds, and that local taxes support education, but if you are stuck with the funds, many schools will not be able to start construction. ”

"You don't know anything about this, and I'm doing this out of helplessness." Shen Shiming replied.

According to Shen Shiming, subsidizing education with land tax is actually a good deed, but Wang Tao's approach is a bit too simple and crude, and spending money is not in the right place.

Wang Tao's method is to build more schools and implement compulsory primary school education for the whole people, which is also the most important point in the education reform plan formulated by Li Yongji and him at the beginning.

In fact, this policy was implemented very well in the past, and it was quite successful, and now the Jiangnan region has become one of the most pro-empire regions, which is not unrelated to this education policy.

Why, because free admission can reduce a considerable part of the burden on the people, and after children learn things in school, they will go home and tell what they have learned, such as loyalty to the monarch and patriotism, such as national events, such as advanced ideas, and so on. What children say will also subtly affect their parents.

In the Jiangnan area, especially in many areas of Suzhou and Shanghai, when children come home from vacation on Saturdays and Sundays, it is often the time for family debates and study meetings, usually parents will accept their children's patriotic education, and recall the past, compare with the present, and then join the loyal and patriotic army more clearly, and have nothing to do with the loyal monarch and patriotism.

This almost blind style of loyalty to the monarch is almost always caused by free primary education. This shows the importance of primary education.

However, Shen Shiming believes that it was successful in the past, because of the special circumstances and special environment, but it is not suitable for the current Chinese Empire, and the most critical problem is the shortage of teachers!

Because when Li Yongji implemented this system, he only had the Jiangnan region under his hands, that is, all of Jiangsu and a few elite areas in northern Zhejiang.

In these places, there are many people who read books. The literacy rate is the highest in China, as the saying goes, that is, the show is everywhere, children are not as good as dogs, let's say Suzhou City, just go out for a walk, street stalls, eight out of ten are literate, and at least half of them have gone to school for three years.

Current textbooks for primary education. They are all revised modern textbooks provided by Li Yongji, which is no problem in itself, after all, primary school, the main thing is to learn Chinese pinyin. Then learn traditional Chinese characters against pinyin, and the other is basic arithmetic.

However, there are not many teachers who can learn this, although the threshold for elementary school teachers is low. As long as you learn Hanyu Pinyin, you will be able to do basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, but you must do this in a short period of time. In other words, if you want to pass the qualification exam for a primary school teacher and become a glorious, imperial primary school teacher, you have to go to school for more than three years.

This condition is not a problem for the Jiangnan region, but if the scope is expanded, such as Shandong and northern Jiangsu, and Anhui region, then the situation is different.

The Anhui region, that is, the west of Nanjing and the east of Anqing, was originally regarded as a place where scholars gathered, but as soon as the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom did this, the number of scholars decreased greatly, and most of them went to Hunan, Hubei, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang.

Not to mention northern Jiangsu, Shandong, it is even more poor, in many places the whole village is illiterate, there is no one to read, the children are all doing farm work early, not to mention the compulsory primary school.

There are many short-term training courses for primary school teachers in Suzhou and Shanghai, and there are also many primary school teachers in reserve, but after they pass the training, they are not even enough in the Jiangnan area, let alone sent to poor places such as Anhui, northern Jiangsu and Shandong, and they are not willing to go.

What's more, Li Yongji also plans to promote simplified characters, or Ji characters, nominally saying that the emperor personally found someone to create the simplified characters of Zào in order to promote the characters.

Although the simplified Chinese plan is only a plan and has not really been fully implemented, looking at Li Yongji's meaning, simplified Chinese characters are also sooner or later, which will increase the learning and training time of primary school teachers.

All in all, Shen Shiming has calculated that if the Chinese Empire implements a compulsory compulsory primary school education system now, the biggest problem is not the school building, this thing can be done if there are money and people, but there is a shortage of qualified teachers.

Therefore, the most important thing now is not to build more primary school buildings, but to carry out more primary school training classes, improve the treatment of primary school teachers, and let more readers devote themselves to the glorious family of primary school teachers.

In other words, Shen Shiming feels that it is not the time for the whole country to implement compulsory primary school education, but should implement differentiated teaching according to different situations.

For example, in the more mature places in the south of the Yangtze River, it is possible to implement compulsory education in primary schools in big cities and increase the training of primary school teachers, but in places like Anhui, northern Jiangsu, and Shandong, they will temporarily suspend it and not implement compulsory teaching, so that not only can more money be saved, but it can also be used in other places first, and the promotion of education can be smoother, and there will be no situation of pulling out seedlings to help them grow.

As for how to embezzle education funds, this can be discussed again, in short, as long as some interest is added when misappropriated, so that education funds can continue to grow, then there is no problem.

Besides, even if it is not misappropriated, the effect of turning the funds for the construction of elementary school campuses into adult training classes may be more significant, after all, adults have higher IQs than children.

Practice has shown that when an illiterate adult between the ages of 18 and 23 and an illiterate child between the ages of 8 and 13 are engaged in literacy learning together, adults must learn faster.

Of course, this learning is faster, which refers to the most basic level of learning, and if we talk about continuity and development prospects, because twenty-three-year-olds will soon show a trend of declining intelligence as they grow older, they will certainly not have a higher development prospect than fifteen-year-old children.

But what's the matter. The so-called higher development prospect is not absolute, after all, adults will continue to learn, and if it only reaches the level of a primary school teacher, then the cost performance of adult learning is higher.

After all, adults learning the content of primary school do not need the school to provide additional nutritious meals, they only need to give money, and the name can also be given a nice title, such as explaining that this is eating imperial food, and the original Xiucai has a treatment.

If that's the case. The position of primary school teacher will be more attractive to adults, and adults tend to be more enthusiastic about learning because they are more sensible, unlike children, who often do not know the hardships of life, will be more playful, and it is not easy to study hard.

The same material reward, so to speak. The effect on adults is definitely greater than that of children, so it is more cost-effective to invest in adults than to invest in children.

Not to mention, I listened to Shen Shiming's words. Li Yongji also learned a lot, originally he only considered it economically and materially, but he didn't expect that there would be so much trouble when the policy was implemented.

As Shen Shiming said, what he found were some obvious problems. There are more problems that are not obvious, and those problems that are not obvious are, to put it bluntly, hidden dangers. There are many hidden dangers, and once there is a suitable opportunity, if they break out together, the impact and damage caused to the country will be quite huge.

"So, in the final analysis, it's a question of the rule of law and the rule of man." Shen Shiming concluded, "His Majesty advocates the rule of law, which Weichen also agrees, after all, now that the external troubles of our Chinese Empire are greater than the internal worries, it is easier for the rule of law to concentrate on dealing with strong enemies, but the legal principle is nothing more than human feelings, and His Majesty's court is too law-oriented and ignores the power of human rule, so it is not good to go on like this." ”

Immediately afterwards, he began to talk about the difference between the rule of law and the rule of man.

According to him, the rule of law is what Li Yongji is doing now, every qi has a law to follow, and every qi qi is implemented in accordance with the law, but these laws are so numerous and cumbersome that even ordinary officials cannot know all of them, let alone ordinary people.

In this way, it was originally a good law, but it will become a bad law below, and it will also give many scoundrels who know the law an opportunity to break the law and oppress the people in the name of the law, but in the end, these scoundrels make benefits, but the bad reputation is given to the court, which is not taken by the wise.

Therefore, the benefits of Confucian rule are reflected, there is no absolute law for human rule, but according to human feelings and natural reason, or universal values to measure a qiē, although the individual subjective casualness is greater, but relatively speaking, it is also more suitable for illiterate Chinese.

Now, Shen Shiming's neglect of government is actually commonly known as inaction, that is, to minimize the interference of the upper echelons, and the central government has no specific and clear orders, and the local officials below do not have the authority to let the police use force, and without the absolute guarantee of the police, they will be more cautious about local government affairs, so that the lower levels can run spontaneously and better rest with the people.

In other words, this is a compromise by Shen Shiming in the case that he cannot change the existing system, that is, in the general environment of the rule of law, he believes that administrative intervention should be reduced from the top, and the government of the Chinese Empire as a whole cannot carry out a lot of work without the orders of the State Council from above.

"Your Majesty, these common people, if you don't care about them, they can take care of themselves, if you take care of it, something will happen. The imperial court only needs to be financially abundant and the army is abundant, and it can be lightly taxed, so that it can achieve a prosperous era, do you say this is the reason? ”

"The problem is that as society develops, as new technologies advance, there will be more and more functions of government." Li Yongji said, "For example, if I build a road, you are still just a simple conflict, if I build a complete railway in the future, after the train runs on the railway, the foolish people want to say that the train is a demon, destroying feng shui, what if you want to destroy the train?" Or if I want to promote industrialization in the future, many craftsmen will go bankrupt because of this, and what if I want to destroy the machine?

In short, the rule of man looks beautiful, but it is not feasible, and a modern country always has to talk about the legal system, at least there must be a law to follow.

Of course, under the legal framework, it is okay to change and influence the situation as appropriate, which is why I have separated the courts from the government level, and the courts must have juries to hear cases. ”

What Li Yongji said, Shen Shiming obviously didn't understand, but he knew that he couldn't fight with the emperor, so he just hurriedly apologized: "Yes, Your Majesty, Weichen is stupid, and he can't see the foresight of the saint, and when he goes back, he must work hard to study the works rewarded by His Majesty, and carefully comprehend the spirit of His Majesty." ”

"Okay, let's do it first, after all, what you said actually makes sense, a society under the rule of law is not something that can be achieved in a day or two, there must be ready-made laws, but in the current situation, it is actually good to properly engage in the rule of man, and it is not bad to be more true without anything." Li Yongji said: "When we formulate a strategy, it will be difficult to be comprehensive and comprehensive, and when we implement it below, there will definitely be problems, but we are not afraid of problems, what we are afraid of is that if there is a problem, we will comprehensively deny it and comprehensively push it down, which is to reverse history." Therefore, I am very satisfied with your approach, and the idea of implementing a certain rule of man within the framework of the rule of law is quite good. ”

"Xie Majesty Xià praise." Shen Shiming said, "But Your Majesty, as Wei Chen said, in order to have more favors in addition to the rule of law and reduce conflicts between local and non-governmental conflicts, the minister thinks that the prime minister's staff should be increased, and then as a special member of the Central Committee of the State Council, he will inspect the local government to coordinate the conflict between local governments and the people, what do you think?" ”

"This matter is good, but the State Department staff don't need it, after all, the role of the staff is not to do this." Li Yongji said, "In this way, there are internal affairs commissioners assigned to various localities, and you can hand over this coordination work to the internal affairs commissioners."

As for you, well, it's true that the State Council can't control the people of the Internal Affairs Bureau, but I can add you the status of a vice chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the Internal Affairs Bureau, so that you can directly lead the internal affairs commissioners below, and it can be regarded as increasing your authority, so it's always okay, right? ”

"This ...... Thank you for your majesty! Shen Shiming was overjoyed.

"Very good, I didn't expect you to surprise me very much, you actually made a rule of law as the skin, and the rule of man as the inside, so that our government can be more flexible. It seems that it was really a Meiji decision to make you prime minister. Li Yongji said with a smile, "As I told you, being a man is to be modest and cautious and low-key, but you can't worry too much about doing things, you should be high-profile, you can try anything, and if you make a mistake, you can change it, just like your disguised human rule, I think you can continue." ”

"Thank you for your understanding, Weichen will go all out and do his best, even if there is a sea of swords and fires ahead, he will go to the soup for His Majesty and pave the road ahead!"

"Good, good, this is the spirit of a prime minister! In short, Wang Tao's affairs will be suppressed for you first, you just let it go, I will bear it if something happens, I am optimistic about you, don't let me down. (To be continued......)