The number of officials in the Great Song Dynasty was indeed large, and even after the southern crossing, when half of the territory was lost, it was maintained at about 40,000.

In comparison, when the Tang Dynasty was at its peak, the number of officials was only 189,000.

It is speculated that the population of the Tang Dynasty was about 80 million, the Song Dynasty had more than 100 million people at the most, and there were about 70 million after the southern crossing.

Therefore, in terms of total volume and proportion, there are indeed too many officials in the Great Song Dynasty.

But really, how?

As a matter of fact, the productive forces are developing, society is progressing, the government's organizational capacity and administrative efficiency are improving, and it is normal for the proportion of officials to increase.

In the middle of the later Ming Dynasty, there were 100,000 civil and military officials, and 1,000 people raised an official, and in later generations, it was close to ten to one in those developed countries.

Of course, the officials mentioned here do not include a larger number of officials and servants, although they do not receive the imperial court, they are essentially dependent on the people for support, but even if they are counted, this proportion is far less than that of later generations.

Therefore, in Zhao Mengqi's view, the large number of officials is not a problem, the problem is that these officials do not play their due role, they just take money and do nothing, and they never relax to exploit the people.

In order to solve the problem of redundant officials, the Great Song Dynasty carried out more than ten reforms starting from Taizu, and the main methods were basically to merge the province with the yamen and dismiss officials, but they all ended in failure.

There are also people who realize the real crux of the problem, for example, when Wang Anshi reformed, he no longer cut officials, but increased the salaries of officials, with the aim of "high salaries. Maintain integrity", reduce corruption and bribery, improve the efficiency of the staff, and even recommend the implementation of the system of bribery.

From a certain point of view, the court of the Song Dynasty was actually a "small government", advocating that the imperial power did not go to the countryside, and the grassroots society was managed by the squire.

In this way, it seems to reduce the state's financial expenditure, but in fact, the squires and officials are using various ways to solicit benefits, and for the people, the administrative costs are not reduced, but are more likely to increase.

Wang Anshi's original intention was to institutionalize hidden costs and unify them into state management, but in fact, his reform has indeed achieved results to a certain extent, but it is a pity that there are too many loopholes and mistakes in this top-down reform, and it is difficult to be stable and lasting.

In terms of political wisdom and governance methods, Zhao Mengqi thinks that he is far inferior to Wang Anshi, and the environment at this time does not allow him to make a big move in the official system, so he plans to try it in a different way.

From the bottom up, the Grange was restructured and the grass-roots management organization was established on an experimental basis, and then slowly extended to the upper level after success.

Zhao Mengqi talked eloquently, expressing his own views, "Haoqiang leaked to pass on taxes, and Xu officials benefited the people, in fact, they are all caused by lack of management, rather than this, it is better for the government to fill in the gaps, get back the taxes that were "stolen", take all the responsibilities that should be shouldered, and establish grassroots organizations, so that they can be taken from the people as much as possible and used for the people."

"Grassroots organizations?" Wu Qian muttered this word, and then looked at Zhao Mengqi with some puzzlement, "What His Highness said seems to be somewhat similar to the armor protection system, but I don't know what the difference is?"

In fact, the armor protection system evolved from the military system, and the real political system as a grassroots political system originated from Wang Anshi's reform, with ten households as one guarantee, five guarantees as one guarantee, and ten guarantees as one guarantee.

"The armor protection system focuses on military and law and order, and is essentially a kind of rural autonomy, but in my vision, it is a comprehensive organization based on production."

"It is not a full-fledged implementation, but it is in line with the grange system, which will gradually replace the tenancy system with a hired labor system, and establish a cooperative to be responsible for organizing and managing farming production."

"This cooperative is not a government organization, it is mainly a service nature, but it can be given more functions, production, life, military, public security, education, medical care, finance, taxation, etc., all of which require corresponding professionals, even if they are not professional, at least they must have a cultural foundation."

"There were so many scholars in the Great Song Dynasty, but in the past, only some of them could become officials through the imperial examination

and most of the others do not have a way out that they are too satisfied with, and can only be raised by the imperial court for nothing."

"Take the more than 2,000 people who have studied in this mansion for example, all of them are studying day after day for the imperial examination, and many of them are old and still haven't given up working hard to be officials, but they can't pass the exam, is it really because they don't have enough knowledge? I can't see it, after all, the number of people admitted by the imperial court is limited."

"What's more, blindly relying only on books may not be able to really grasp knowledge, I think practice can produce true knowledge, and the unity of knowledge and action is the right way for readers to progress."

These words had a big impact on the scholars, and they vaguely understood King Yan's thoughts, but they still needed more thinking to digest.

Wu Qian's eyes sparkled, "The unity of knowledge and action? Unity of knowledge and action? Your Highness's words seem to be quite subtle, do you mean that students should be allowed to study while also practicing practice? In fact, this makes a lot of sense, and it took many years of practice for the old minister to be able to handle government affairs."

Zhao Mengqi continued, "This is one of them, I want to say that the career is not the only way for scholars, through the experiment of the Grange Cooperative, more suitable positions for scholars can be explored in the future, and industry, agriculture, business, military education also need educated people."

"Taking 10,000 steps back, if the refined management I envisioned can succeed, then the government will inevitably increase more official positions, and this kind of management will promote social production, so it will naturally not be a burden, as long as it can generate value, no matter how many officials there are, it will not be redundant officials."

Wu Qian nodded thoughtfully, "In this way, it is a good thing for the teachers and students in the official school."

Several academic officials also figured out at this time that the increase in official positions is not only beneficial to students, but also means that they themselves have an upward channel.

The Great Song Dynasty was very cautious about the selection and appointment of scholars, not only to have good moral conduct, but also to be knowledgeable, the Jinshi background is only a qualification, and often have to go through a special examination to become a scholar, and then there is a strict assessment and supervision.

However, the local school officials with very strict requirements and heavy responsibilities have not been treated accordingly, and are even called "cold officials", with low status, difficult promotion, and meager income.

After it was related to their own interests, several scholars also began to think that Yan Wang's idea of increasing officials was actually quite good......

"In order to meet the demand, I think the teaching subjects of Pingjiang Fuxue need to be improved."

The official school itself is aimed at cultivating civil officials, and the courses are closely related to the content of the imperial examination, which is mainly two categories of scriptures and poetry at this time, and there are also some related courses such as law and official documents.

"In the past, the imperial court also opened many martial arts, arithmetic, medicine, law, painting and other specialized schools, but all of them have been abandoned, I hope that Pingjiang Fuxue will not just focus on the imperial examination, rest on its laurels, but become a comprehensive university, not only including the above disciplines, but also the establishment of agriculture, engineering, construction, water conservancy, geography, navigation, etc., as long as it can be useful to people, it should be studied as a knowledge!"

"There are less than 2,000 students in the school now, this is not enough, far from enough, even if it is increased tenfold and hundredfold, it should be!"

Zhao Mengqi said hey, and he didn't care whether his views could be accepted by people at this time, anyway, he threw out his brain.

I have long heard that King Yan has unique ideas about the school, and he has also expressed some ideas in the court through the topic of civil and military disputes before, and he has personally proposed and presided over the construction of a new sect.

Unexpectedly, Lin'an's new sect was still building a house, and King Yan now hit the idea on Pingjiang Fuxue again, and it seems that the idea is even bolder, or he had such an idea before, but it was not exposed.

Although the scholars were a little awkward and resistant, they thought of the new way out that King Yan said before, if they want to "use", they must first "learn", not to mention that King Yan has not reduced the original share of official learning, and it will not affect the interests of those who are interested in the imperial examination, and it seems that it is not unacceptable.

And if the scale of the school is really expanded tenfold and hundredfold, it will naturally produce all kinds of tangible and intangible benefits, then these scholars are the direct beneficiaries, so why bother

What about opposition?

Professor Zeng stood up and said with a serious expression, "Your Highness, although there is some truth in what you said, the lower officials still believe that Confucianism is the orthodox learning, and official learning must firmly adhere to this principle."

Then the voice changed, "But the sage also said, there is no class of education, my generation of scholars whose lifelong wish is to be able to educate all the people in the world, and naturally I am also happy to see His Highness expand the scale of the school, the so-called tolerance is great, my Confucianism is actually not closed, based on Confucianism, miscellaneous learning for use, should not be contrary to the original intention of the sage, the lower official is willing to assist His Royal Highness to give it a try, but the lower official has a doubt, where does the school funding come from, where does the students come from, where do the teachers come from?"

Zhao Mengqi thought that Professor Zeng was going to oppose it at first, but he didn't expect him to make such a big detour, and he didn't know if it was to convince himself or show others a high-sounding reason.

No matter what Xiao Jiujiu he has in his heart, as long as he can support it, Zhao Mengqi will welcome it.

"Your doubts are generally solved by the grange, through the reform of the official land system, the tax of Pingjiang Prefecture will increase greatly in the future, but I can't leave too much money in the local government, so I think that directly in the grange income, a part of the income is dedicated to education, which must be more adequate and stable than the funds provided by the previous school field system."

At the same time, I plan to open Mongolian schools in every grange, and select students from the school to serve as teachers, and the outstanding students cultivated by the school can enter the school school, and the teacher of the school is also responsible for the account processing of the cooperative, as well as daily supervision and some related management."

This grange system, under the design of Zhao Mengqi, formed a number of different stakeholders, such as the nominal owner like Zhao Hui, the person who held the scrolls, the government that collected taxes, and then tied the interests of the prefecture and county schools to the peasants, and when the time came, they jointly managed and supervised each other.

"As for miscellaneous teachers, it's not an overnight thing anyway, you can first recruit talents from the private sector, and teach while improving, I will make arrangements in this regard, you don't have to worry too much."

Everything needs time to develop, and Zhao Mengqi's ideas have to go through a long period of exploration and improvement before they can be successful.