On the way north, he met an old bureaucrat like Zhou Wenyun, which really made Lin Tie depressed.

Lin Jian did not reprimand Zhou Wenyun, and impatiently sent him away.

Zhou Wenyun retired, and Xiaoman, who was sitting behind the screen and listened to things, walked out, looked at Lin Lian's sad face, and said with a smile: "This elm pimple, it doesn't look good, kick him away, and replace it with someone who can do things and the original director to be the magistrate of the county, just do it......"

"This Zhou Wenyun," Lin Jian watched Su Mei and Xiaoman come out, and said with a wry smile, "Although he has few brains, he can say this crooked reasoning in a grand manner, which shows that he still trusts me, and compared to those characters who hide knives behind their backs, it is still worth fighting for." Again, leaving them alone can also make everyone see where the problem is, instead of hiding the problem and finally poking out some big problems, which is not good......"

"Then you're still sad?" Xiaoman asked.

"Zhou Wenyun, these old bureaucrats, the problem is still not big, the real resistance is still the local gentry clan," Lin Jian turned to Su Mei and Xiaoman and sat down, and said, "I think of this, I think things are difficult." The core prefectures and counties along the Yangtze River are better, but deviating from these areas, the general prefectures and counties, especially the areas below the county level, are still controlled by the gentry clans. You do the math, Guanyun County, counting Zhou Wenyun, the chief seal official, auxiliary officials and officials combined, there are only twenty or thirty people, and Guanyun County is a hundred miles wide and has a population of 150,000. Not to mention that old bureaucrats like Zhou Wenyun resisted the New Deal, the gentry clans below who had a little power in the local area wanted to resist the New Deal, and there were many means, and the New Deal could only be superficial and could not be truly implemented......"

Su Mei said: "Since the implementation of the New Deal, these gentry have not only not received any benefits, but also the various privileges they enjoyed in the past have once again been cancelled for you; Although he owns a large amount of land, he has to bear a tax burden that is twice as high as the basic land tax, so how can he not have resentment in his heart? The ministers are afraid that the work of the Department of Internal Health is not thorough enough, but you still don't care......"

"If we want to change this situation, we still need to set up township departments below the county level, and we can't call the rural society below the county level to be controlled by the gentry and the clan," Lin Jian said, "It is not enough to have a simple township department, but also to call the township department to be responsible for uniting the poor peasants who have benefited from the new policy, and setting up a peasant association or a township soldier organization to be responsible for autumn training and other things, so as to suppress the arrogance of the local tyrants and inferior gentry......

In Lin Bin's plan, only when the township system is truly established can the administrative execution of the center penetrate into every corner of the new empire.

At present, there are more than 700 counties under Jiangning's rule, and 6,000 to 8,000 township departments need to be set up, and at least 350,000 grassroots officials need to be barely enough.

At present, the new schools run in Jiangning, Chongzhou, Mingzhou and other places can only train more than 1,000 new government officials every year, and these people with a relatively high level of education are mainly added to the central government, county departments and government offices.

Lin Jian arranges for meritorious veterans to retire every year, and they are the main force in the current construction of the township division system. However, in order to affect the combat effectiveness of the Huaidong Army, it can only be gradually replenished by platoon of 3,500 meritorious veterans every year.

At this rate, it will take at least ten years to improve the township system.

In fact, in addition to a large number of grassroots officials, a financial source that can support the township system is also needed.

For this reason, in the new tax policy, Lin Jian classified the basic land tax and the municipal commercial tax as localities; The income controlled by the household department, which mainly comes from the field endowment and oral endowment, will be sharply reduced by 50 percent from the original 10 million taels of silver.

All affairs are one ring after another, and if there is a problem in any link, the implementation of the entire new policy will be delayed, and it will even go back to the old road.

Lin Jian summoned Song Jia and the Zuo sisters who accompanied Song Jia and Ayaori Irie to dine together, and they could not stop after nightfall, and an urgent letter from western Zhejiang once again aroused Lin Jian from the bed in the middle of the night.

This year's drought in western Zhejiang has affected more than 20 counties, and even Shangrao and other prefectures and counties in Jiangxi Province have also affected. After the autumn, the drought in western Zhejiang was so serious that the central government had to directly intervene in the disaster relief work, and Lin Jian sent Sun Jingtang as the minister of disaster relief to go to western Zhejiang to deal with the disaster relief affairs with the two Zhejiang Xuanfu envoys.

The urgent letter from western Zhejiang at night was Sun Jingtang's further investigation of the disaster after he went to western Zhejiang.

More than 20 counties in western Zhejiang and southeastern Jiangxi have been affected by the severe drought, and nearly 40 percent of the fields have failed to harvest in two seasons, and the output of other grain fields has also been generally reduced, and more than 20 counties have been affected by the disaster, involving more than 2.5 million people.

The current drought in western Zhejiang is similar to the drought in Henan and Guanzhong after the autumn of Chongguan in the eighth year, and it is even more serious.

The collapse of Yuanyue and the southern invasion of Yanhu were only one factor, and the great chaos in the Central Plains, which took several years to subside due to the drought in Henan and Guanzhong, was a more important factor.

The drought in Henan and Guanzhong began after the autumn of the eighth year of Chongguan and continued to the ninth year of Chongguan, and there were almost more than 20 counties that failed to harvest for two consecutive seasons. At that time, the financial capacity of Zhongzhou County Department and Yanjing had been exhausted by the war on the northern and southern fronts, and there was no such institution as Huaidong Qianzhuang to provide sufficient elasticity for the central finance.

In the end, almost two or three million displaced people poured into the Jianghuai region, and there were Liu An'er and other ambitious people at the bottom, and finally brewed the Huaisi Liumin army chaos in the Central Plains.

Therefore, after the great drought in western Zhejiang, the Privy Council was also extra nervous about the drought in western Zhejiang, first repeatedly ordering the two Zhejiang Xuanfu envoys to pay attention to the disaster, and finally sent Sun Jingtang, who had rich experience in disaster relief and people's organizations, to western Zhejiang for disaster relief.

Lin Jian put forward two requirements for Sun Jingtang: one is not to let the unorganized outflow of victims to impact the surrounding prefectures and counties, and the other is not to let people starve to death.

Sun Jingtang's urgent letter, in addition to making further investigation conclusions on the disaster situation, also issued a large list of disaster assistance. The most fundamental item is to transfer 2 million stone rice grain from the outer prefectures and counties into western Zhejiang, and the central government needs to allocate 3 million silver yuan for disaster relief funds.

In the old days, three million silver dollars was a tongue-wrenching amount.

The two Zhejiang Xuanfu envoys and the inspection envoys all countersigned Sun Jingtang's urgent letter, Lin Jian sighed lightly and said: "It's another extra expense of three million silver dollars, and Lin Mengde's hair is probably going to turn gray again......"

"I thought that if I didn't fight a big war this year, I could breathe a sigh of relief, but I didn't expect that the remaining financial resources would be consumed by the drought in western Zhejiang, and Mengdegong's mood would naturally not be good." Song Jia said with a smile.

"If only three million silver dollars can solve the problem in western Zhejiang, the branch division can still barely bear it," Lin Jian said, "There is no need to raise taxes, and there is no need to ask for help from Huaidong Qianzhuang and Colonist Yinzhuang; There is a big drought in western Zhejiang, but many people want to see the good show of the Guogong Mansion, and I am afraid that they will be disappointed......"

"Shangrao Prefecture is also involved, Guanxi County should be in the center of the drought, but the disaster is the lightest among the more than 20 counties, and there is even spare strength to supply grain to the surrounding affected counties, it seems that the damming of the river is indeed very beneficial...... Su Mei looked at the official letter and said.

Guanxi County was the main battlefield of the Battle of Shangrao, and it was renamed Guanxi County to commemorate this battle.

In the battle of Shangrao, Lin was bound to the upper reaches of Shanxi, barrage and dammed, impacted the defense line built by the luxury family in the downstream, opened the dam and lagoon, and impacted both sides of Shanxi beyond recognition.

After the war, in order to compensate the local government, Lin Jian specially pulled out silver money to Guanxi County to build a permanent barrage dam in the upper reaches of Shanxi.

In addition to cultivating more fertile land, barrage dams and reservoirs are mainly used to alleviate the serious problem of over-flooding and drought on both sides of the Shanxi River.

The barrage dam was created after last autumn and was officially opened this year.

Although the drought in western Zhejiang, which involves parts of Jiangxi, has shown its power since the beginning of summer, the barrage dam still stores a certain amount of water before the drought, instead of letting these water sources flow into the Ganjiang River and then into Poyang Lake, so that Guanxi County can easily survive the most severe dry season this time.

It's just that other places are not as lucky as Guanxi County.

The construction of barrages to change the hydrology and geography and regulate drought and flood is only one of the ancient water weir projects; The history of the pre-Qin period can be traced, and the most famous is Dujiangyan at the end of the Warring States period. At that time, the western Sichuan Plain was flooded for thousands of miles when it was flooded, and it was thousands of miles away when it was dry, and after the construction of Dujiangyan, it made nearly 3 million acres of fertile soil on the western Sichuan Plain become fertile land for drought and flood protection.

Although western Zhejiang is located in the south, the situation of excessive flooding during flooding and drought is also very serious. The good thing is that the surrounding eastern and northern Zhejiang are grain producing areas, so whenever there is a disaster, even if the disaster people flow out, the bearing capacity of eastern Zhejiang, northern Zhejiang and other prefectures and counties is also strong, so as not to cause chaos.

However, this drought in western Zhejiang is also rare in the past 100 years.

Although Sun Jingtang asked for 3 million silver dollars from the central center this time to buy 2 million stone grain from the outer prefectures and counties to enter western Zhejiang, of course he would not distribute it to the affected people for no reason. Instead, it is necessary to use the money and grain to build water conservancy, transportation, and other public projects in western Zhejiang, and to exchange work for relief for the people affected by the disaster, so as to solve the problem of food and clothing after the disaster, and once these large-scale water conservancy and transportation projects are completed, they will be able to improve the basic appearance of the counties in western Zhejiang more thoroughly.

With Sun Jingtang in western Zhejiang, the center can pull out three million silver dollars, and the surrounding prefectures and counties can also ensure the supply of two million stone surplus grain, so there will be no big problems in western Zhejiang, and the new deal can also take this opportunity to take root more deeply in western Zhejiang-Lin Jian also breathed a sigh of relief, signed an opinion on Sun Jingtang's urgent letter, and sent a letter to Jiangning overnight, asking the Privy Council to dispose of it according to the system.

The New Deal cannot solve all the problems that may exist in the future once and for all, and even the New Deal itself will produce many serious problems.

Lin Jian never had the luxury of having the ability to eliminate all crises in advance from the beginning, and his ultimate goal was only to establish a flexible central power, a flexible central power that had the ability to solve major crises in the face of important disasters and wars, and even in the face of enemy invasions.

If a country or nation wants to last for thousands or thousands of years, it will inevitably face a variety of serious crises, and the most important thing is the ability to deal with serious crises; There has never been a perfect system of government that can extinguish all crises in advance from the outset.

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PS: Zongheng's Weibo system "Zongheng Chat" was opened, and if my brother wants to complain to me, you can follow me on "Zongheng Chat". It's very simple to use, after the author's name on the page, there is a "follow also" button, click on it, you can follow me; Of course, I will also pay attention to the book friends who are active in the book review section.