"Your Majesty, I think this move is really inappropriate!"
Zhang Ben spoke meaningfully: "Such a large-scale expansion of the number of court officials will bring too many hidden dangers."
"One is that if there are more officials, the court's expenses will increase immediately. Your Majesty is also planning to implement a policy of high salaries to support integrity. Combining these two, I am afraid that the court's annual expenditure on official salaries will be an astronomical figure!"
"The more officials' salaries increase, the more the court's financial expenditures will increase. Naturally, the less money will be used to actually develop people's livelihood. This is not a good thing, Your Majesty!"
"Secondly, it is necessary to allow the central temple supervisor to be stationed in the local area. The veteran believes that this is really unnecessary. The local government has three departments: the Chief Envoy, the Inspection Envoy and the Commanding Envoy. They do not oversee each other and supervise each other. I am sure nothing will happen. Why would Your Majesty continue to act like this and expand the size of the imperial court in vain?"
"This organization has become bloated and the number of officials has increased significantly. It will not only deplete the court's finances, but also lead to overstaffing and endless fighting. The entire Ming Dynasty officialdom will become a mess, and it will not benefit the country at all!"
I have to admit that Zhang Ben, an old minister, is quite experienced.
Zhu Gaoxu frowned, picked up the tea cup and fell into deep thought.
To put it bluntly, the main reason for Zhang Ben's objection is the problem of redundant officials, redundant personnel and redundant costs.
The most typical representative of this "three redundant problems" is the former Song Dynasty.
Since the Zhenzong (Zhao Heng) and Renzong (Zhao Zhen) periods of the former Song Dynasty, the administrative agencies have become larger and larger, and the financial burden has increased sharply. There has been duplication of institutions between the central court and local government, the number of officials has increased rapidly, and the bureaucracy has been overlapping. With the establishment of the government, more and more officials were admitted through the imperial examination, which caused the bureaucracy to expand rapidly, and there were many dandies with no real talent or learning.
Even in order to arrange for these people who have obtained official qualifications, the imperial court adopts the "fixed officials, unlimited staff" method for government agencies at all levels to expand the capacity of government agencies at all levels as much as possible. This is simply outrageous!
Under the wanton indulgence of the former Song Dynasty, those literati and officials became even more unscrupulous, arbitrarily arranging their own children and nephews to enter the officialdom, and even newborn babies were included in the list of bureaucratic ranks.
As a result, due to the vicious expansion of the number of bureaucrats and the bloated bureaucracy, the yamen style prevailed, officials were extravagant and corrupt, followed the old-fashioned way of doing things, and did nothing. The disaster of "redundant officials" became increasingly serious, which in turn led to the problems of "redundant staff" and "redundant expenses". question.
As the number of officials increases, the financial expenditures required by the court will naturally increase greatly, and dozens of times of salary must be allocated to support these so-called officials who are not doing business.
The rampant "three redundancies" caused two major ills in the former Song Dynasty. First, production shrunk, the state's finances were empty, and "poverty" was always extremely serious; second, the military system was corrupted and national defense was weak, which affected Liao and Xixia. Intrusion is powerless, and the problem of "accumulated weakness" is quite prominent.
"Three redundancies" led to "two accumulations", coupled with the most famous party disputes among civil servants in the former Song Dynasty, which depleted the national destiny of the Song Dynasty.
What followed was the intensification of social conflicts, and peasant uprisings one after another. While civil unrest continued, border areas were successively troubled by foreign invasions.
The former Song Dynasty claimed to have millions of troops, leaving no people to cultivate the land, insufficient national reserves, increasing deficits, and exhausting the people's taxes and rents. However, when a powerful enemy approached, the country did not have an army to fight, and had to lose gold and silk every year. , living in peace, and finally had to use gold coins to buy temporary peace in the border area.
Therefore, the problem of three redundancies became a huge stone that crushed the former Song Dynasty!
Zhu Gaoxu naturally understands these truths.
But the reason why he did this was also out of necessity!
"Old Minister, do you know that there is a saying that has been circulating among the people in the countryside, which is "the imperial power will not go to the countryside"?"
As soon as these words came out, Zhang Ben and Zhou Chen were shaken all over. They were so frightened that they hurriedly stood up and knelt on the ground.
Seeing this, Zhu Gaoxu smiled and asked the two of them to stand up.
"This is not your problem, but a shortcoming that has existed in all dynasties throughout the ages!"
"The imperial government was only established at the county level, but the countryside below the county was dominated by the gentry and clans!"
"The reason why I want central agencies to be stationed in local areas and the reason why I want to expand the scale of the imperial court is to break the monopoly of the clan and gentry on the local countryside!"
"The number of officials will definitely increase a lot in the future, but the new policy of gentry serving as servants and paying food as one must also be implemented. The history of imperial power not going to the countryside must come to an end. What I hope is that my decree can be quickly implemented throughout the world. every corner of the country, instead of stopping abruptly at the county level!"
"I don't want all the fields in the Ming Dynasty to be controlled by the gentry and clans; I even don't want the people of the Ming Dynasty to be enslaved and oppressed by the local gentry and so-called clans. I dare not be angry. Word!"
Why expand the size of the imperial court?
Why should central agencies be stationed in local areas?
If there are no officials to occupy the countryside, then the countryside will still be dominated by the gentry and clans!
The national laws of the Ming Dynasty are not as good as the family rules of the clan, and the laws of the Ming Dynasty are not as good as the holy words of the gentry. What kind of truth is this?
Zhu Gaoxu wanted to implement the new policy of allocating land to land, and the first enemy to bear the brunt was the local gentry who occupied most of the land!
From the land to the clan and gentry, this is undoubtedly an extremely difficult bone to crack!
In an era of low production efficiency, people gathered together with their clans and joined groups to keep warm and barely make ends meet. This was acceptable because this was how the Chinese people had come through the past dynasties.
It is inevitable that there will be some academic seeds in this clan. They will receive the support and training of the clan, successfully gain fame through the imperial examination, and even go further to become officials in the court, and they will become gentry and gentry, and the entire clan will also receive benefits from this. !
The clan and the gentry are actually one and the same. The clan cultivates the gentry, and the gentry returns benefits to the clan. With the tacit cooperation of both parties, we annex local fields, fish and feed the local people, and plunder the people's fat to enrich ourselves.
However, when social productivity reaches a certain level, both the clan and the gentry become a major obstacle to social development, because the clan gentry first considers not the interests of the entire clan, but the interests of their own small family first. The gentry's first priority is not the interests of the country, but the number of benefits they can seek from the country's policies!
These are the two major enemies faced by the policy of sharing the land with each other, the clan and the gentry!
If the privileges of the gentry are not broken, even if the fields are now equally distributed to the common people, it will not be long before these fields will eventually return to the hands of the gentry with fame and privileges!
If the clan system is not broken, it will be difficult for the social population to move. If the population cannot move, it can only be tied to the land to maintain low-cost operation. In the end, the income from the common people's farming will only enrich the clan, and It is not beneficial to the country and the people!
Yang Shiqi can no longer hold on. With the implementation of the New Deal, the pressure on his shoulders is increasing.
At this critical moment, Zhu Gaoxu will never allow him to retreat!
So now, Zhu Gaoxu wants to take action himself!
