After listening to Wang Zhenyu's jihua, Chen Hongji and the others looked at each other and exchanged glances with each other.

Chen Hongji asked in a slightly excited trembling voice, "General Wang, is this idea of yours true?" ”

Wang Zhenyu looked at Song Haomin beside him: "It's really a mouth-to-mouth, it's not a good deal, look, President Chen doesn't believe my words, it seems that General Ben will start growing a beard tomorrow." Wang Zhenyu used a joke to resolve Chen Hongji's embarrassment, and Chen Hongji then smiled very gratefully. Then he turned his mind back to the somewhat appalling words that Wang Zhenyu said just now: "Civil affairs are handed over to the localities, and the local governments are appointed, supervised, impeached, and replaced by the local councils. At the commune level, civil affairs are all under the hands of the commune chambers of commerce, and the local government and the council have the power to direct and supervise. Government officials can consider following the example of Britain and the United States divided into two categories, one is civilian officials, the other is administrative officials, the former is a contract system, the latter is appointed and dismissed through parliamentary elections, including county heads, as for the directors of bureaus are appointed by county heads, the same as above, civilian officials are signed every five years and are directly managed by the parliamentary civil affairs committee. As for the council, it is composed of chambers of commerce, local celebrities, village chiefs and patriarchs. Whether it is a provincial city or a town guard, there will be no intervention. ”

Chen Hongji also went to the ** lake in the south and north, and after listening to this passage, he immediately understood the core meaning of the words, General Wang is going to throw the government to all walks of life in the local area. And among all walks of life in this place, the business community is the richest, so naturally it is the most vocal, and businessmen can actually dictate local government affairs? This is a strange thing that has not been heard of for thousands of years, if such fat meat is to be let out, this General Wang will not be fooling himself, right? Thinking of this, Chen Hongji hesitated again.

Wang Zhenyu seemed to see through Chen Hongji's careful thoughts. He smiled and stood up, then reached out and gently held Chen Hongji's hand and said: "My President Chen, the cause we are going to do now is exactly what our predecessors have never done, but there is no problem of crossing the river by feeling the stones here, because Westerners in the West are already doing this." ”

Chen Hongji still looked at the confident Wang Zhenyu excitedly, and for the first time he had a sense of respect for the young general, before that, he only felt awe for Wang Zhenyu.

Wang Zhenyu also gained a sense of pride in the surprise of the three or four bigwigs of the Jingzhou Chamber of Commerce, and his original goal was only to obtain a broader ruling base through such a reform, after all, the threshold for engaging in business is much lower than that of the civil service examination, and it is also much more real in terms of testing personal ability.

So as long as you control it well and limit the power of these businessmen to the parliament and the civil affairs side of the government, then the benefits of this reform will far outweigh the disadvantages.

Of course, the test of truth still depends on practice.

Therefore, in order to ensure the success of this political reform, it is still necessary to pool wisdom and make careful plans to finally sweep away the social problems that have plagued China for thousands of years, such as corruption in the administration of officials and lack of morale, through the method of changing the traditional centralized system.

Chen Hongji is also a very practical person, and his performance in the annexation of the chamber of commerce alone can fully illustrate this point, so Wang Zhenyu now hopes that the president of the chamber of commerce will take the lead in the matter of political reform.

After all, this is not a trivial matter, from the point of view of the show, it is to give power to the businessmen and do good deeds. But what if the merchants don't believe it? What if they don't want to participate because they're afraid? Then he will have to face the resolute counterattack of the vested interests of the current system in the current Jingzhou government alone, because he has moved their cheese.

Although the risks are visible, this will not shake Wang Zhenyu's determination.

And Chen Hongji is also a very practical person, which can be seen from the fact that Wang Zhenyu ordered the collection of troops and the arming of merchants when he first arrived in Jingzhou. Therefore, after taking over the errand of political reform, Chen Hongji tried his best to restrain his inner excitement, actively contacted the bigwigs of the eight major business gangs in Jingzhou, gathered at Wang Zhenyu's garrison headquarters, and began an intense planning and research discussion. Wang Zhenyu was very satisfied with this, he would participate in it as soon as he had time, and at the same time specially instructed Ma Xicheng to arrange food and accommodation.

These businessmen were also very moved by Wang Zhenyu's politeness, because they became proactive in the process of discussion.

It must be said that the wisdom of the masses of the people is really infinite, as long as they set a general direction, the imagination of the businessmen in the details is very amazing.

For example, in the case of parliament, businessmen proposed bicameral representation, specifically, the election of parliamentarians according to geography and industry.

As for the source of the councillors, the first is to set up administrative villages, the subordinate relationship is directly to the county level, the head of the administrative village (elected by the locals themselves, once every three years) or the patriarch of the local big family takes turns to serve as councillors (generally one person, the national conditions), the administrative villages of each county are 100, not beyond this range, and the specific setting is implemented by the county government, which means that there are 100 resident councillors;

The second is to set up ten commercial towns in each county along the uniform spacing standard of the trade routes, mainly for providing commercial goods to nearby rural residents and maintaining the normal operation of the trade routes. A president and a mayor are elected to automatically become county councillors, with the mayor in charge of all matters of the commercial town, including the collection of business tax. The use of the business tax is divided into three parts, one part is used to pay the expenses of the town government, one part is paid to the administrative villages within the scope of the town (each town radiates ten administrative villages) to support their infrastructure construction, and the remaining part is used for the construction of the town. Here, the commercial town side occupies 20 seats.

The third is the county seat, the chamber of commerce has nine fixed seats, including one president and one each of the eight major business gangs.

Fourth, there are celebrities in the society, since the term of office of the county council is three years, according to this principle, each term will be nominated by the county government, and ten celebrities who have no public office, no notoriety, and no criminal record will be appointed as councilors.

There are a total of 139 councillors, and they are then divided into seven groups: finance, justice, transportation, culture and education, health, industry and commerce, and agriculture and forestry according to their industries, regions, and personal wishes. Each group is composed of 17 members of parliament, who are responsible for supervising, auditing, and finalizing the accounts of the government.

The prefectural magistrate is elected by the members of the prefectural council, while the directors of the bureaus under the prefectural government are appointed by the prefectural magistrate for a four-year term.

At this point, apart from the 29 seats, the proportion of power of the businessmen does not seem to be large!

Don't worry, there is a backhand here, this gang also set up a standing member system, and the meeting of all members of the parliament is held every six months, and the agenda is three days. The regular monthly meeting of the parliament does not need to be convened in full, but only needs to ensure that 29 businessmen, 10 well-known people in society, and a total of 49 members of the five largest administrative villages and the five most populous administrative villages in the county (not repeated) will automatically serve as standing councilors, which means that the big and small matters are basically decided by these standing councilors.

The county finances are in the hands of the council, and no one is allowed to use a penny without the consent of the council or the order of the town guard.

Just such a conception of a parliamentary system, Wang Zhenyu was amazed, who said that the Chinese people in this era have not opened up their wisdom? When it comes to the design of the power structure, the hidden wisdom of these businessmen who nod their heads and bow when they see everyone on weekdays bursts out, and it is really the bayonet standing behind that side, and the waist pole over there can be hardened.

If this system is implemented nationwide, then no one will want to be a warlord or a ** system, because the money and personnel power are in the hands of the parliament.

By the way, for personnel, I don't know which of these nine people has studied Western political science? He actually put forward a Western political science concept, the Civil Affairs Commission. Roughly speaking, government officials are divided into two categories: one is the civil officials who are employees, that is, the officials of the past; The other category is the director and deputy director of the county magistrate, who are appointed and dismissed by the county magistrate, and these people belong to the administrative officer. Civilian officials follow the British approach, with work contracts signed every five years and renewed at the end of the term, while civilian officials are given a salary increase and promotion once a year based on performance. However, these have nothing to do with the administrative officer, who only has the right to recommend and evaluate, and the right to appoint, dismiss, and adjust salaries is all in this civil service committee. Wang Zhenyu understood at a glance that this was tantamount to assigning the organization department to the whole country. And the bureau chiefs, who have no personnel and financial powers, cannot combine themselves and their subordinates through interests except for arranging errands. At the same time, the term of office of these civilian officials is five years, and the contract is automatically renewed for 10 years after 15 years of service; The administrative officer is four years, and if there is no accident, anyone who becomes the county magistrate and the director will not affect the development and conduct of the daily work of the county government. Because these civil officials are only responsible to the parliament, and their superiors are left with only the power to plan, organize, arrange, and schedule.

This span is even larger than Wang Zhenyu imagined, to the point of lawlessness in the parliament.

However, it can't dampen the enthusiasm of the parliament, Wang Zhenyu changed a few articles, and the rest remained unchanged:

First, the county mayor is elected by the vote of the residents of the county, and those who participate in the county mayor election must form an election team, and the candidates for the director and deputy director after being elected can only be selected from the election team.

Second, in county-level judicial bodies, such as the Supervision Bureau, the head of the court is appointed by the higher level (i.e., the town guard office) and exercises vertical leadership.

Thirdly, members of the Parliament do not want to have immunity from prosecution and judicial immunity, and all violations involved in the offence will be supervised by the Inspectorate and handed over to the courts for handling.

Fourth, the county level and above are the provincial councils, and the provincial level is the town guards or provincial government agencies, and there is no need to set up a council.

Fifth, those who pay taxes in each county must share the cost of the garrison, and they must pay taxes according to the regulations on the types of taxes.

Sixth, Members must assume corresponding social responsibilities, and the specific scope can be chosen by themselves, and arrangements are not mandatory.

Seventh, the speaker of the parliament is elected once a year, and the most important authority of the speaker is to decide on the convening of the meeting and the agenda of the meeting.

The businessmen looked at these articles added by Wang Zhenyu, although the intention of limiting the power of the parliament was obvious, but it was seriously beyond the imagination of themselves and others to be able to do this, so they were also satisfied and agreed.

The next is a very practical problem, there is no free lunch on Shijie, our General Wang Zhenyu can hand over the power of county governance to the local government, it is naturally not a good deed, it must be rewarded.

After repeated consultations, Chen Hongji and others put forward their own quid pro quo: "General Wang is really the style of the elderly, and he is indeed dedicated to the people. General Wang treats the people of my government and four counties so kindly, and we naturally have to repay one or two. ”

Here are the specific conditions:

First, a one-time sponsorship of 1 million yuan for the military expenses of the Tiger Brigade to reward the hard-working soldiers;

Second, the four counties bear the daily military expenses of the local garrison, and of course this garrison is a permanent army, and there is a limit, specifically no more than 3,000 men and horses per county.

Thirdly, the costs of the construction of parliaments and the judiciary, as well as the preparation of public schools and hospitals, are all covered by the Chamber of Commerce in installments.