On the morning of the seventh day of the seventh lunar month, Wen Tianxiang silently put down the newspaper after the morning meeting. The newspaper published his second brother's article, although it was not a signed article, and those cases were very familiar to Wen Tianxiang. Since it is the official family who sets the tone, the content of the article is not shy about it, and at this time it is about the second part, how the landlords transferred their taxes to the tenants through various loopholes in the system.

Wen Tianxiang has always felt that he is a moral person, and after reading this, his self-confidence was shaken. Such a method is simply natural in the eyes of the landlords, but from the perspective of a high-ranking official of the imperial court, it can only be described as shocking.

In addition to this serial, the other one is also unsigned, and it seems to be full of Zhao Guanjia's writing style. tells the story of the Great Song Dynasty before the surrender of Lin'an. At that time, the military leaders north of the Yangtze River owned military states, or owned land that could collect taxes and cities. This situation directly led to the feudal suppression of the army of the Great Song Dynasty. The people south of the Yangtze River were tied to the land and began serfdom. Together, they made the Great Song Dynasty weaker and weaker, and finally lost to the Mongols.

Wen Tianxiang made himself a cup of green tea, and the bitter taste made him feel refreshed. More than ten years have passed since President Lin'an's surrender, and Wen Tianxiang can still remember his intense mood back then, but that mood has been shrouded in a faint diaphragm.

More than ten years ago, Kublai Khan ordered the south to invade the Great Song Dynasty in Youzhou City, and now Youzhou has been recaptured by the Great Song Dynasty. Thirty years ago, the Mongol Great Khan Meng Ke ordered an attack on the Great Song Dynasty in Horin. It is estimated that within a year or two, the cavalry of the Great Song Dynasty will be able to enter Helin City. Earlier, Genghis Khan rose in the steppe. Wen Tianxiang felt that according to Zhao Jiaren's arrangement, he would probably be able to see the Great Song Dynasty conquer the entire grassland like the Great Han in his lifetime, and make the tribes on the grassland submit or flee outside the Great Song Dynasty.

With this layer of diaphragm to isolate the humiliation caused by President Lin'an's surrender, Wen Tianxiang can finally recall the old things in a relatively calm mood. However, the Great Song he saw was still standing on the edge of the abyss, which made Wen Tianxiang feel the pain of his heart as if he was being held tightly again. That abyss has always been at the foot of the Great Song Dynasty, and the Great Song Dynasty has never been able to escape from danger for more than 300 years. It's just that the literati of the past generations have desperately whitewashed the peace, so that everyone has never been able to see where the danger comes from.

The mood was getting lower and lower, and Wen Tianxiang felt that this was not good. As soon as he picked up his pen, he wrote a letter to his third brother Wenzhang, at this time he only hoped that the third brother could put state affairs first and do what he should do well. As a secretary of the ministry, Wen Tianxiang knew that any behavior that could be quickly promoted would have imitators. The literati called him 'the little man who tends to be inflammatory'.

At this time, Wen Zhang was also writing a letter to his eldest brother Wen Tianxiang. The letter recounted his recent progress, and many landlords in Jiangning saw that the Duan family confessed, and the government also had some sense of conciliation, and fined the good land, but agreed to waive the fine for the good land when it was acquired. At this time, some landlords also confessed and used the same means to avoid punishment. Of the more than 13,000 acres of land, more than 3,000 acres have been solved in this way.

Writing this, Wen Zhang felt that the uneasiness in his heart became clearer, after the landlords who were willing to give in gave in, the rest were the landlords who refused to give in. At that time, Wen Zhang could only learn to fight the strong dragon and the head snake, and as far as Wen Zhang knew about the history of the Great Song Dynasty, there was a lack of education and cases in this area. Thinking about this clearly, Wen Zhang wanted to ask his eldest brother to give some advice.

After all the letters were written, Wenzhang picked them up and read them twice, and then burned them. This is a habit he gradually develops, and writing letters to his eldest brother has also become a means of sorting out his mood to some extent. Write out your uneasiness each time, and go back and look at it again. Even if you can't find the uneasiness as it is, you can feel it more clearly.

Wen Zhang knew that what he was worried about was the fierce struggle that followed, and that this struggle was not limited to the landlords. After tidying up the table, Wen Zhang took out a new Jiangning water conservancy map. This is a complete system based on the Qinhuai River and several surrounding rivers and lakes. According to the latest measurements provided by the director of the water resources bureau, the course of the Qinhuai River is now at least half a foot higher than the fields on both sides of the river.

The reason for this situation is probably that people have cut down forests in the mountains upstream, destroying vegetation, and the soil on the surface is easily washed down by rainwater and deposited on the bottom of the river. If all the mountains could be nationalized and the vegetation could be restored through afforestation, the water would become clearer. Clear water naturally has a strong erosion ability to the bottom of the river, and the river will become deeper.

After the completion of this overall water conservancy project, Jiangning's millions of acres of mountainous land and land can be fully utilized, and with industrial development, Jiangning will surely become a wealthy place on a par with Suzhou, Hangzhou and Songjiang Prefecture.

Looking at the planning map, Wen Zhang's heart warmed. The opportunity to become a famous minister like his eldest brother is just around the corner, and Wen Zhang will not let it go no matter what. Put away the drawings, and convened the officials and cadres of the Agricultural Bureau and the Taxation Bureau to come to a meeting, and everyone listened to Wenzhang's document to immediately issue a reminder for the payment of fines, and the tax director Zhan Qixin said hesitantly: "Today is the Chinese Valentine's Day, and in a few days it will be the Midyear Festival." Is it not appropriate to issue a reminder at this time? ”

The directors felt that Zhan Qixin was reasonable, but they didn't dare to express their support immediately. After all, the current prefect of Jiangning is Wenzhang, and with Wenzhang's performance now, everyone is not very willing to make Wenzhang unhappy.

Hearing that someone was going to delay time, Wen Zhang was indeed very unhappy in his heart. Isn't Tanabata a festival that the public will participate in! Isn't the Midyear Festival just a ghost festival that every family celebrates every year! Wen Zhang felt that these people were really short-sighted, and when the Qinhuai River control project was over, they could celebrate the festival as much as they wanted. Thinking about it, Wen Zhang's face became gloomy. With a gloomy expression, he asked Zhan Qixin, director of the tax bureau: "Is the staffing of the tax bureau complete?" ”

Zhan Qixin replied embarrassedly: "The graduates of this year's school have not yet been reviewed. ”

"Then hurry up!" Wen Zhang said unhappily. He now thinks that he understands the reason why Zhan Qixin is so pushy, or because of the lack of personnel in the tax bureau. Ninety-one landlords were confirmed to have been fined, so they walked over one by one, and each family had to send one person. In the past, a small official in charge of grain collection had dozens or hundreds of vassals under his command, and there was a real reason for this. There are many people who can work.

But Wen Zhang also knows what will happen if no one works. In the battle of Dingjiazhou that year, Jia Yidao was defeated, and Wen Tianxiang saw that the Great Song Dynasty had no troops to resist, so he ran home and sold his family property to form the prince's righteous army. As a result, after only one battle, the whole army collapsed, and the dead ran away. Seeing that he was really incapable of independent armed combat, Wen Tianxiang decisively chose to defect to the small court in Fuzhou. Since then, Wenzhang has also understood the importance of manpower.

was dissatisfied with Zhan Qixin, and the article still said patiently: "After the Midyear Festival, I will start to send another reminder notice, telling them that this is the last notice." If we can't pay on time, we can only collect on door-to-door. ”

"What if there are not enough people. At present, the affairs of the cadres are handed over to the supervision and audit cadres of each road. Zhan Qixin hurriedly asked.

Wen Zhang's heart became even more unhappy, but he knew that it was useless to urge Zhan Qixin. As Zhan Qixin said, the officials of each province are directly managed by the imperial court officials. The cadres of each province have set up a supervision department for officials sent by the officials in each road, and they are responsible for auditing. The result is a very slow flow of people. The heads of the agencies dispatched by the Ministry of Officials are only responsible to the Ministry of Officials, and even the prefect of Jiangning cannot give orders to such departments. He knows very well that those who hate the Wen family to the bone would like Wen Zhang to do such a thing, so it is just right to impeach Wen Zhang for colluding inside and outside, plotting against him, and overthrowing Wen Tianxiang together.

"You do what you have to do first. I'll take care of the rest. Wen Zhang replied angrily. This anger was not aimed at Zhan Qixin, Wen Zhang understood that he really needed to ask his eldest brother Wen Tianxiang for help in the situation of avoiding trouble.

From Jiangning to Hangzhou, the urgent letter arrived in two days. Wen Tianxiang felt a little embarrassed after reading the third brother's letter, of course he wanted to help his brother, and he knew that this matter was not easy to solve. The original officials and minor officials of the Great Song Dynasty were a separate system, and the source of officials was the jinshi of the imperial examination and various meritorious people. Basically, the number of officials on the roster in a county is 5-10 people such as county governors and county clerks. It is not entirely impossible to expect such a person to make special achievements, and Zhao Jiaren created a large area of new irrigated farmland in Putian back then. It is precisely because of this great merit that Zhao Jiaren was promoted to Fujian Road Prison after becoming a county lieutenant.

Lifting the pen, Wen Tianxiang wanted to reply to the third brother, at present, the imperial court in response to the latest system reform has a lot of debate, the ministry is discussing whether to imitate the earlier system, give the local personnel appointment power, and establish the personnel department of the management cadres of each government. Some radicals in the ministry have even proposed the establishment of county-level personnel offices in each county to manage grass-roots personnel.

Since there is support for these proposals, there will be opposition to them. Opponents insist on the 'ancestral family law' before the Great Song Dynasty, and the so-called ancestral family law is the principle of mixing different theories, civil and military systems, internal and external dimensions, and upper and lower rolling each other. If the local government has personnel power, this ancestral family law of 'upper and lower intervals' will be completely destroyed. The local governor became a prince-like role. If they can be re-elected in one place repeatedly, they will be standard feudal towns.

Even some people didn't know what they were thinking, and they said that since Zhao Jiaren was 'from Jinshi', for the sake of 'safety of the royal family', the clan should be forbidden to take the Jinshi examination. Wen Tianxiang did not dare to express his opinion on such a suggestion.