There is a saying that the times create heroes, which means that when society develops to a certain extent and faces the threshold of reform, a heroic figure is needed to set an example and lead everyone to follow the trend, break through this threshold, and enter a new era.

Most of the big figures who have left brilliant chapters in history in ancient and modern China and abroad are this kind of people, and they are all born due to the needs of the times, and most of them are political, military and economic big figures, such as Liu Bang, Napoleon and others.

Of course, there is also the theory that heroes create the current situation, which refers to the fact that there are still a small number of strongmen who can rely on their own abilities to greatly influence the trend of society and history, guide the entire trend, and then make similar achievements to create history, so that human society can take a big step forward.

Generally speaking, most of these people are talents in the field of science, such as Newton, Watt, Einstein, etc., because although they do not have great power, their inventions can greatly change the productive forces of human society into the city, and then cause extraordinary changes, so this kind of people are generally called people who create history.

To put it bluntly, the key to evaluating whether a character is a hero created by the current situation or a hero of the current situation is to see how much influence he has on the entire society.

In this respect, at least in this historical plane, Li Yongji is the kind of person who deserves to create history, because his appearance has greatly changed the scientific and technological process and the level of development of productive forces in this world, even if it is only a very small range of changes at present, but after all, this change exists.

However, after all, the time is too short, like a road roller that has just started, although it has already shown its grandeur. But it has not yet reached the power of sweeping the world, and it has not yet reached the situation of truly changing the world.

Of course, after all, Li Yongji brought technology and resources that were two centuries ahead, and he quickly obtained the power of a country, as long as there is enough time, when the people of this era integrate the new technology and new equipment brought by Li Yongji, sooner or later they will burst out with extraordinary power, and with this force, Li Yongji will definitely not be able to run the title of a great man in the world.

Even, because Li Yongji has built a certain technical and industrial foundation in China. With the initial production capacity of heavy industry, even if Li Yongji disappears immediately now, or loses the ability to trade time and space, the world of this plane will become different because of this, and at most the speed of development will be slower.

On the contrary, Prime Minister Shen Shiming is a typical type of person who makes heroes in the times, without Li Yongji's discerning promotion and bold delegation of power, Shen Shiming would never have become the prime minister of the Chinese Empire and become a generation of famous ministers.

Strictly speaking. Shen Shiming was a typical Chinese Confucian merchant during this period, although he also had a certain pioneering spirit, but his conservative and cautious character was also very obvious, so his governance measures were not prominent. It's more about sticking to the old ways and making slight improvements on that basis.

In other words, Shen Shiming does not have the courage to make drastic reforms, but he is a good executor. If you can make a framework, he will try to help you do it, even if the framework is full of mistakes.

For example, Li Yongjisheng has adopted a set of governance policies. When Li Yongji was in charge of the country, he relied on force, and the effect was quite limited, and the influence was very small, but there were many conflicts.

However, when the ruler became Shen Shiming, he did not change the country's existing principles and policies, but on the premise of personal improvement, he used the simple method of streamlining and slacking off government to make the country quickly stabilize.

After all, the development of the country and the quality of the people cannot be achieved overnight, and if the bureaucratic system that Li Yongji formulated earlier is too complicated and has too much administrative control, it can only make the society continue to be in turmoil, arouse the hostility of too many people, and greatly increase the consumption of the state treasury.

To put it simply, in terms of administrative management, Shen Shiming, a local businessman, is more reliable than Li Yongji, a modern otaku, in terms of personality and experience, and his grasp of the entire social environment is also more accurate and patient.

On the contrary, Li Yongji, don't look at the experience of modern society, but whether it is his character or experience, he is not suitable for politics, and all this he has obtained now is obtained by opening his golden finger. Once he doesn't have the help of the golden finger of space-time trading, he may be able to mix well only by relying on the memories of his previous life, but at most, he will be a rich man, and it is absolutely impossible to lay such a foundation in such a short period of time.

However, although Li Yongji is not good at administration, he also has an advantage, that is, he is generous enough, can tolerate people, and is willing to promote talents without exception, which is also an important factor in his rapid success.

Just like Shen Shiming, Li Yongji was promoted exceptionally at the beginning, and when he found that his ability was not bad, he was entrusted with a heavy task again, adding new authority to him, and then, Li Yongji was willing to sincerely delegate power.

Since Shen Shiming became the prime minister and really managed the country's major policies, in addition to involving issues that he was interested in, Li Yongji usually did not ask Shen Shiming about specific governance measures, and directly came to make a big deal, which is also one of the reasons why Shen Shiming was able to conceal Li Yongji from him and make private improvements.

In fact, Shen Shiming's courage was exercised little by little, and when he first started, he always asked Li Yongji for instructions, but most of the time Li Yongji simply let him watch and do it, and rarely disagreed with him.

This time and again, Shen Shiming slowly figured out some of Li Yongji's habits and preferences, and did not report some small things, but left a file, and when he usually talked to Li Yongji on the phone, he only accompanied Li Yongji to talk about the topics he was interested in.

In this way, due to Li Yongji's own delegation of power, Shen Shiming gradually took power in China, and within the scope of his ability, began to carry out a series of reforms to the domestic bureaucracy and governance methods, that is, to implement simplified administration and rule by people, to reduce the confrontation between the court and the people, especially to reduce the hostility of intellectuals.

Because in Shen Shiming's opinion, the things that Emperor Li Yongji did were too cumbersome. It is also too strict, if we follow those methods, not to mention the great shortage of administrative manpower, even if it is sufficient, it will cause great chaos, and the people will not necessarily buy it, and it is very likely that a good law will become a bad bad law.

After all, for most Chinese nowadays, they still don't understand the relationship between power and duty, and they don't have any concept of nationalism, so they care too much. If you don't get it right, it's self-defeating.

Therefore, Shen Shiming's governance philosophy is to let the court officials try to be as nosy as possible, anyway, the main source of finance and taxation of the Chinese Empire today is not through the land tax and poll tax, but on the value-added tax, trade tax, and luxury tax paid by imperial enterprises and state-owned enterprises, which have little direct relationship with ordinary people, so it is better to simply let the court withdraw, so as not to get into trouble when you get it.

In this way, the local administrative organs do not have to build too big. For example, the police do not need to recruit too much, which can save a lot of money, and correspondingly, when the officials reduce the control and interference of the locality. Local law and order has not deteriorated much, and is even better than in the past.

To put it simply, Shen Shiming's concept of streamlining administration is actually a traditional commercial method of open source and cost reduction. He achieved the goal of reducing administrative expenses by reducing the number of local officials and reducing the control of officials over the localities.

But. Although the purpose of streamlining the administration was to reduce expenditure, he was very measured, and only reduced the number of magistrates, especially the number of officials, and reduced the salary expenses by reducing the number of personnel, but he did not reduce his investment in the Wehrmacht at all.

Because Shen Shiming understands very well that the national defense force that can be commanded by the State Council is the foundation of the country's stability, and it is also the capital of his life, which must not be easily shaken, so anything can be moved, but the army cannot move!

For example, he embezzled the land tax, no longer built large-scale educational facilities, but used the money as the principal, and then united with a group of Huizhou businessmen to set up an industrial bank controlled by the State Council, which specially lent loans to a group of large landlords, old bureaucrats, and well-connected intellectuals, and encouraged them to set up industries.

In order to make those people accept his kindness, he not only lent money through the Industrial Bank, which is controlled by the State Council, but also found people to do his best to match the borrowers and provide them with a series of preferential policies, so that they could have a green light all the way and make money as soon as possible.

Since China was recovering from war and chaos during this period, and with new technologies as the driving force, foreign trade was in full swing, and it was in the stage of rapid economic development, so it can be said that it could make money in whatever it wanted.

In such an atmosphere, especially when the road to becoming an official is narrow, these old bureaucrats and old-fashioned intellectuals who have no ambition for various reasons simply take advantage of this thing created by Shen Shiming to step down and plunge into the tide of going to the sea to do business under the slogan of rejuvenating the country through industry.

The charm of capital is endless, and when they put down their bodies and plunged into the business sea, they are quickly conquered by this new stimulus, throwing away all the benevolence, righteousness and humility, and the thirst for profit becomes the first place.

Although the time is still short, China is too big, and the overall cultural quality of the people is too low, and the people of the whole country have not yet entered the tide of doing business for the whole people, but at least in some cities in the developed eastern regions, doing business and making money has become a trend, which has greatly impacted the original local social order.

In fact, the fact that the vast number of intellectuals can put aside their prejudices and do business in such a short period of time, and then form a trend of doing business and going to sea, is also the result of a variety of joint forces.

First of all, nature is a stable social environment.

When Li Yongji established the Chinese Empire and then unified the whole country, although there were still some so-called autonomous provinces, because the central court had absolutely strong armed forces, and all domestic checkpoints were abolished, the overall environment was peaceful, which provided the most basic external conditions for the prosperity of commerce.

Second, it is the economic policy of opening up the country.

After the founding of the Chinese Empire, the economy implemented a policy of free trade that was fully open to the outside world, which was tantamount to taking the initiative to open the country to the outside world. In this way, foreign businessmen can come to China more easily to pan for gold. The arrival of foreign businessmen has not only brought a large amount of capital, but also brought a large number of orders, which is equivalent to increasing funds for China, expanding the market by the way, and stimulating China's business operations.

Among them, combined with some modern technology, with high value-added made in China has made a great contribution, especially those Chinese drugs with remarkable curative effects, which are the darlings of international trade, and have always been in short supply, bringing a lot of profits to the country at the same time, but also bringing fire to the surrounding markets by the way.

In addition, during this period, both North and South America were experiencing wars, which led to the shrinking of the market in the New World, and India had just experienced a major riot, which was also a major loss of vitality, so European countries simply put their trade focus on China and strengthened their trade with China.

It can be said that by 1864, more than half of Europe's foreign trade was going to the Chinese market, which was equivalent to turning most of Europe into a dumping market for Chinese goods, and at the same time, most of Europe's gold and silver also flowed into China in large quantities with the import of Chinese goods, which further stimulated China's business environment.

This environment, coupled with the imperial government's continued investment in infrastructure, especially the strong rise of Ma'anshan Iron and Steel, has injected new vitality into China's industry and commerce.

In other words, under the current circumstances, the development of industry and commerce in China is in a favorable place and people, and in the face of this general trend, China's tradition of despising business is not worth mentioning at all, and it is easy for the Chinese businessman class to rise up from the original oppressed class to the upper ruling class and become a truly decent person.

Therefore, Li Yongji's own measures have contributed to the emergence of this trend, and it is the basis for him to single-handedly create this phenomenon, including the establishment of heavy industry, technological reform, and the implementation of free trade policies.

All in all, Li Yongji is the founder and founder of all this, and the reason why there was no large-scale outbreak at the beginning is that the time is too short and belongs to the early investment stage, so it is not conspicuous.

After Shen Shiming took over the power of the state, the overall environment for the development of industry and commerce was already quite good, and he greatly alleviated social contradictions through a series of streamlined administrative reforms, and guided China's upper-class elite to invest capital and energy in industry and commerce, which accelerated this process and allowed private industry and commerce to develop vigorously.

Nowadays, this situation has formed a virtuous circle, and the trend of non-governmental business has led to the prosperity of industry and commerce, which has brought a large amount of industrial and commercial tax revenue to the State Council, and by the way, trade tax revenue has also increased significantly, greatly alleviating the deficit of the state treasury.

Although the current treasury is still in a state of deficit, after all, there are too many debts in the early stage, but the situation is slowly getting better, and the country's credit is getting stronger and stronger, which is reflected in the people, that is, the life of the common people is getting better and better, and everyone's satisfaction with the imperial court is getting higher and higher.

It is precisely because of this that Shen Shiming feels that his policy has been a great success, and believes that it is because of his own reform of streamlining government that all this has been caused, which has provided him with unprecedented self-confidence.

With this beautiful achievement and self-confidence, Shen Shiming dared to hide from Li Yongji and continue to carry out in-depth reforms, until he found out that Li Yongji was about to return to China, and after thinking about it several times, he felt that waiting for the emperor to return to China seemed to be a bit passive, so he took the initiative to tell Li Yongji all this.

Of course, Shen Shiming is very smart, his report is to first talk about the country's recent achievements, and then say that it is because he has implemented the policy of streamlining the administration and governing the people, which is why he is like this, and asks His Majesty to punish him for crimes such as making decisions without authorization.

At this moment, even Li Yongji, who has weak social skills, can hear it, the other party is obviously asking for guilt, but in fact, the voiceover is asking for merit.

He just wants to show off his merits by constantly asking for merit, so that Li Yongji feels that he is indispensable, that he governs the country well, that he is safe and unambitious, so that the emperor can use it with confidence and comfort, continue to trust him, reuse him, and it is best to give some rewards.

With Shen Shiming's current status, it is impossible to increase the ranks, and he does not dare to have extravagant hopes, but it is still necessary to enter a knighthood or something, which is also one of the important purposes of Shen Shiming's initiative to ask for credit this time. (To be continued......)