Two days later, in the "Hong Kong Economic Journal", Fanning published a real-name article "There is endless wealth there", the article detailed the current situation of the southern continent, as well as a variety of rich mineral deposits, not only gold and silver mines, but also high-grade iron ore and carbon ore, the article described the happy life of the people in the southern continent, the article pointed out that the southern continent is not far away, as long as 20 days to arrive, he encouraged more people to immigrate to the southern continent, encourage more businessmen to go to the southern continent to open mines.

This is to use public opinion to pave the way, and on the morning of the same day, Fanning officially submitted his development and investment plan for the southern continent to the Empress Dowager Cao.

proposed a plan to invest 10 million yuan in five phases within three years, and the Empress Dowager Cao did not immediately express her position on this plan, she needed to think about it later.

In the round hall of the prefect's hall, several prime ministers began to discuss the development plan of the southern continent, which was the number one major matter that the Son of Heaven pressed down yesterday, and the prime ministers had to pay attention to it.

The deliberations were presided over by the right minister, Fu Bi, in addition to the seven ministers, there were more than 20 senior officials of various ministries, supervisors, and chief of the three departments.

A few more words need to be said here, after the Song army recovered Youyan, the war temporarily subsided, and Wang Anshi continued to promote his reforms, this time the changes were the highlight, reforming the official system, in short, restoring the Tang system.

Since the establishment of the Great Song Dynasty, the six ministries and the temple supervisors have basically been hollowed out, the real power has been controlled by the three divisions, and the Eastern and Western Inquisition Yuan has been hollowed out, and the Privy Council has been hollowed out of the military department.

In the end, the squire and Langzhong of each ministry are just a title, and the officials take this title to serve in the local government, and for example, the two adjacent counties, one is likely to be the county of Jingguan after the regularization, and the other is the county order that has not been regularized.

The official system of the Great Song Dynasty was very complex and very chaotic, with no fixed staff or full-time personnel, overlapping institutions, and in the end, even the officials of the Ministry of Officials and the Court of Judges were confused.

This overly complicated bureaucratic system has brought about a large number of redundant officials who only take money and do not do things, resulting in many political departments and extremely inefficient courts.

However, reforming the bureaucratic system will inevitably involve the interests of a large number of officials, so Zhao Ji adopted Fanning's two-step suggestion, and the first step was to clean up the virtual officials.

The exchange of titles and overseas land for fictitious officials, and the permission to inherit the title for three generations, this plan has been responded to and supported by the fictitious officials, including the Jiedu envoy, the defense envoy, the observation envoy, the assassin history, the Taishou, the regimental training envoy, the don't drive, and a large number of fictitious officials have been successfully abolished, and the number of officials in the court has been reduced by half, and the monthly expenses have also been reduced by hundreds of thousands.

Later, due to the outbreak of war, the reform of the bureaucratic system was suspended, and now it has been restarted as the war has subsided.

This time it involves a change of substantive power, so it is more difficult and will violate the vital interests of too many officials.

The Great Song Dynasty implemented the system of low-level officials holding heavy power, for example, a third-division official holds the power of the fourth-grade official, but he himself is only a seven-grade petty official, Wang Anshi's change is that the power and position are equal, and the four-grade official is in charge of the four-grade power, which will undoubtedly deprive a large number of low-level officials of their power, the key is that there are a large number of interest groups behind many petty officials, which has been formed for decades.

At this time, the deliberations had not yet begun, Xiangguo was talking in a low voice, and Ouyang Xiu said to Fan Ning: "The Zhizheng Hall is also going to change, and the reform of Yuanfeng in the three provinces will be restored, and it will be implemented soon." ”

Fanning smiled and asked, "How to change it?" ”

"With the left and right servants of Shangshu shooting as the prime minister, the left servant shooting and the servant under the door, the position of the servant, the right servant shooting and the servant of the middle book, the post of the book order, so as to play the function of the middle book discussion, the review of the door, and the undertaking of the book, but the actual power belongs to the middle book."

"What about the governor?"

"The governor of the government has changed his name to Zhongshu Shilang, Menxia Shilang and Shangshu Zuo and Youcheng."

"That is to say, after the prefect's deliberations, there will be no more, and the original five governors will be reduced to four, and I, the privy envoy, will be kicked out?"

Ouyang Xiu looked left and right, lowered his voice and said: "Now the intention of the Son of Heaven is not clear, but I personally feel that I am afraid that the deliberations of the Zhizheng Hall have somewhat hollowed out the power of the Son of Heaven, and the court meeting has become a virtual existence, and I am afraid that important matters will be decided at the court meeting in the future." ”

The establishment of the vice minister of the state to participate in the governor's affairs, the original intention was to divide the power of the prime minister, and later in the actual operation gradually formed a voting system, once the vote passed, the Son of Heaven has little room to express his opinions, which has caused a great restriction on the power of the Son of Heaven, and the discussion of the court meeting has also become a fictitious, the court meeting passed, but the prefect voted not passed, the same useless, on the contrary, the ministers of the court council strongly opposed, but the prefect voted through, and the ministers opposed it is meaningless.

Therefore, Zhao Ji wanted to take the opportunity of this official reform to restore the Tang system, cancel the voting system of the Zhizheng Hall, and discuss and decide at the court meeting, on the one hand, to increase the right of the ministers to make suggestions, and at the same time, to make the power of the Son of Heaven fully reflected in the court meeting.

If the voting rights of the Zhizheng Hall are revoked, then Fanning, the privy envoy, will not be kicked out of the decision-making circle.

At this time, Fu Bi walked in, holding a stack of manuscripts in his hand, and he handed them to Shi Zhi and asked him to distribute them.

Fan Ning quickly got the manuscript, and sure enough, it was the development plan of the Southern Continent, and it was difficult to know that the efficiency of the political hall was so high, and it took only two days for the Son of Heaven to come up with a complete plan.

The whole plan has five pages and more than 4,000 words, to be precise, this is also only a five-year plan, with 500,000 immigrants, about 120,000 households, 100,000 Japanese miners recruited in the near future, and an additional 20,000 troops garrisoned.

The plan is very detailed, even detailed to the people in those prefectures and counties, but this report does not mention the problem of money and expenditure at all, and it is estimated that this problem will be left to itself.

Fu Bi coughed lightly, and the round hall immediately fell silent, and Fu Bi said to everyone: "This discussion is actually very hasty, I originally wanted to discuss it with you in a few days, but the official family specially summoned me early this morning and asked me to come up with a plan tomorrow, let's take a look!" It's the plan you have in hand. ”

Han Jiang held up the manuscript and said: "Fu Xianggong, I took a brief look, it said that there will be an additional 20,000 troops and 100,000 Japanese miners will be recruited in the near future, first of all, I want to know, when does this near future?" ”

Fu Bi said: "Within this year." ”

"Have the 20,000-strong barracks been built? Even if it's a tent! 100,000 Japanese miners can be recruited, and according to the management, each miner has to advance five months' wages to their families, 10 taels of silver per person, and 100,000 people are 1 million taels of silver. ”

Fu Bi looked at Fan Ning, and Fan Ning had to smile bitterly and said: "I also handed over a copy of the Southern Continent Development Plan to the Queen Mother today, but I focused on money and expenditure, and I also mentioned the start of the stationing of 20,000 troops and the labor expenditure plan of 100,000 miners, and I hope that the Queen Mother will allocate two million taels of silver this year." ”

Everyone immediately understood that the development of the Southern Continent was originally the idea of the Inner Library, and Han Jiang hurriedly asked, "Is the Queen Mother willing to approve it?" ”

"The two million taels of silver in the first year, the Queen Mother did not make it clear whether she agreed or not, but she put forward a request, if it is necessary to let the inner treasury bear the development expenditure of the southern continent, it is necessary to establish a special treasury, and every expenditure of this special treasury must be used on the southern continent, and it is not allowed to be diverted for other purposes."

Fan Ning looked at everyone again, "Do you agree with this condition of the Queen Mother?" ”

Wen Yanbo said slowly: "The Queen Mother has always been strict about the use of money in the inner treasury, from the year before last to the present, a total of only five approvals, the Construction Engineering College and Taixue Expansion Enrollment approved two, the Salesian Hospital approved one, Henan Mansion disaster relief and sacrifice to the first emperor each one, I remember very clearly, so the Queen Mother's request to build a special library is very normal and reasonable, I think it is acceptable." ”

Fu Bi also nodded, "I also think it's reasonable, you can establish a special library and use it exclusively for the development of the Southern Continent." ”

Han Jiang asked Fan Ning again: "The recruitment of 100,000 miners for a million taels of silver, will the Queen Mother approve it?" ”

Fanning smiled: "As long as the special library is established, I don't think it's a big problem." ”

Fu Bi asked again: "Fan Xianggong, do you have any additions to my plan?" ”

Fan Ning bowed slightly and said, "I basically agree with Fu Xianggong's plan, but I still want to add two points." ”

"Fan Xianggong, please speak!"

"The first is that I don't think the number of immigrants is enough, and I hope to immigrate 200,000 households within five years, of course, this is just my personal suggestion, the prefect can consider it, or the report is not so clear, you can write that the number of immigrants is between 120,000 and 200,000 households.

Second, I don't feel that the report reflects the intention of giving priority to refining steel, for example, how many prospecting officials should be sent first? How many high-level smelters are ready to send? Where to build a smelter? Using coke smelting, what is the scheme for refining coke? How to build a warehouse on the dock? How to arrange the ships transporting steel and so on, I haven't seen it in the report, Fu Xianggong, I'm afraid the Son of Heaven is more concerned about what I said! ”