The provincial reform plan proposed by Su Yonglin is an inheritance and development of the "Xingtai" system of the Han and Wei dynasties and the "Xingshangshu Province" system of the Jin Dynasty.
During the Han and Wei dynasties, the Shangshutai became the actual decision-making body of the central government. In order to maintain the centralized system and demonstrate the power of the central government, the central government would dispatch special working groups to handle matters that could not be resolved in some places, called Xingtai.
This system has a long history, but was gradually abolished during the Sui and Tang Dynasties.
Due to frequent military actions during the Jin Dynasty, this system was brought out again, but the main reason was mostly military issues, in order to provide military and political power to senior officials of the Shangshu Province who were performing official duties, to facilitate his actions and to demonstrate the authority of the central government.
At this time, the Xingshangshu Province was not a custom-made or local administrative division, but an official agency.
This is not the case with Su Yonglin's reform plan.
He planned to replace the road and road-level structures that had been established since the Tang and Song Dynasties in the local area in the name of "Xing Shangshu Province", making it a real local first-level administrative division, instead of the former supervisory agencies such as roads and later administrative agencies.
From the very beginning, he wanted to turn the Xing Shangshu Province into an exact first-level administrative agency. The Xing Shangshu Province was mainly responsible for undertaking the decrees of the central Shangshu Province and managing local administration.
Seeing this place, all the ministers felt awe-inspiring.
Su Yonglin's explanation of this is still very personal.
"When a dynasty is first established, it usually ends with wars and chaos. At this time, the population often drops sharply, and the people of the world are at peace. There are not many other things in the local area other than the restoration of production, and the pressure on the central court is not too great.
During this period, it was not too difficult to move from the direct jurisdiction of the imperial court to the second level of prefectures and counties. The roads of the Tang Dynasty and the roads of the Song Dynasty were originally supervisory offices, not administrative offices. But later, they gradually became administrative offices. Responsibility.
The reason is simple. As the world is at peace for a long time, the population increases greatly, people's mentality changes, small and big local matters increase, and more and more things need to be decided by the court. The court is overwhelmed and has no choice but to give the road official administrative responsibilities.
In the beginning, this was a strategy of strengthening the branches and strengthening the branches, and decisions were made under the influence of the former Hanzhou Mu and the former Tang Jiedushi. However, later on, they had to go back to the old path. In this way, many previous plans and Restrictions have become a joke. "
Based on this, Su Yonglin believed that instead of going back to the old road when the court was overwhelmed later, it was better to broaden the road from the beginning, clarify the governance, accumulate administrative experience in first-level administrative divisions, and make preparations for the future population increase and daily affairs. Respond in advance.
Regarding Su Yonglin's approach in this regard, all the ministers had different ideas.
Some people think that this is a good thing to improve efficiency, while others think that this will cause local governments to antagonize the central government, which is not conducive to the traditional strategy of governing the country since the Song Dynasty.
Although the Song system was cumbersome, it eliminated the possibility of bureaucrats and military generals at the institutional level rebelling against the central government. As for the other ordinary people who rebelled... couldn't they just be killed?
But this time no one objected, but some people took the initiative to stand up for it.
Yelu Chenghui, a doctor in the Civil Affairs Department, publicly stood up to support Su Yonglin. He believed that Su Yonglin's approach was right and he firmly supported it.
Yelu Chenghui took the lead, and then Yelu Yuanyi immediately stood up and expressed that he also supported Su Yonglin's view.
A few more people stood up soon after, as if they suddenly realized that doing so made sense.
Kong Zheng and Huo Jianbai glanced at Yelu Chenghui in unison, as if they were dissatisfied with his quick eyesight and quick hands.
What do you want to do by expressing your political stance so quickly?
Su Yonglin just smiled and said nothing more.
Next, Su Yonglin's reform plan also decided to abolish the administrative planning at the road, military, and supervisor levels, retain only state and government planning, and also abolish the current six-level state system.
In fact, the six-level state system does not make much sense, and there is no essential difference between the six-level states of Dudu State, Defense State, Tuanlian State, Jiedu State, Observation State and Governor State.
The only difference is the name and level of the dispatch, as well as what kind of official positions are provided to military attaches and clan members.
Mainly military attachés, of course.
In view of the Song Dynasty's suppression of power and humiliation of personality of the military attaches, in order to prevent the military attaches from being overly depressed and rebellious, they had to use generous salaries to win over the military attaches so that they could indulge in glory and wealth and not rebel against the court.
It's called pig farming for short.
This is where the six-class state system is used.
For example, the Dudu Prefecture provides a first- and second-grade Dudu Governorship for the exclusive use of the prince. The official title is [Envoy Chijie Governor to supervise the military affairs of a certain state and the governor of a certain state] or [The (large) governor of a certain state and the governor of a certain state].
The actual dispatch titles of a governor's officials are "Knowing the military affairs of a certain state" and "Informing the military affairs of a certain state". These are positions provided to civil servants to hold real power in doing things.
The planning is strict and quite cumbersome. What one person can do, it takes two or three people or even three or four people to do it. Then a state needs to provide three or four salaries to win over people's hearts and support the officials.
In this regard, the people of Song Dynasty were smarter. Although they suppressed the power and personality of the military attachés, they gave them enough glory and wealth. In comparison, Goryeo did very poorly.
Wang Xi also learned from the Song Dynasty in treating military officers harshly and treating civilian officials well, but he went too far and made the military attaché unable to control his anger. He finally launched a mutiny and killed all the civilian officials and eunuchs. In the end, Wang Xi himself died, which directly started the century of Goryeo. Military dictatorship.
Su Yonglin was neither prepared to suppress military attachés nor had the relevant demands. Keeping these systems would only increase the number of extra freeloading officials and only increase financial difficulties——
He just needs to increase the number of legal officials, so there is no point in retaining these boring systems, so he simply abolishes them all to make room for future clerks.
So he announced that all administrative states would be designated as governor states, and all state-level governors would be designated as state governors, without additional titles.
The six-class state system was abolished, and all official positions that were parasitic on the six-class state system were cut off without leaving any one.
This is naturally a major reform project for the ministers, and they feel very sad about it.
But after cutting off the redundant quotas for military attachés who were freeloaders, Su Yonglin certainly did not treat civilian officials more gently. He wanted to treat them equally.
The military attachés are supported by the sixth-class state system, and the civilian officials also have related treatment policies that are very costly.
For example, "Official positions do not represent responsibilities. Only when you are assigned can you be considered to be in charge, otherwise you are just a free-loading mascot." This phenomenon is a direct product of this policy.
It’s okay to emphasize civil servants over military officers, but the civilian government is also subject to various restrictions. It is obvious that only one official can do one job, but there is a distinction between official positions and dispatches, and one position supports several people.
A subordinate who is responsible for handling affairs cannot even find a superior who can directly lead him, and is at a loss when faced with many complicated orders.
This kind of lack of separation of powers and responsibilities could only happen in the Song Dynasty.
This situation still exists in the Southern Song Dynasty, and it is relatively better in the Jin Kingdom. Although the Song system was adopted, most of them only retained the name and not the reality. Despite this, there were still many redundant officials.
Yelv Chenghui had described this in detail to him at that time, describing the administrative difficulties of the Jin Kingdom and some of the reforms Wan Yanliang had made to address these difficulties. Needless to say, Wan Yanliang was still an enterprising spirit. reformer.
It was a pity that he met Su Yonglin, the person who wanted to kill him.
Now, Su Yonglin decided to inherit some of Wan Yanliang's practices, and what he had to do was to cut off both the name and the reality.
He decided to abolish the distinction between official titles and dispatches since the Jin and Song Dynasties, abolish all the original civil service positions, and cancel all the so-called dispatch titles such as Zhizhou and Tongpan.
There are not so many twists and turns and redundant officials to do whatever the official position does.
The governor is the administrative head of a state and is responsible for the administrative affairs of a state. There is no such weird title as knowing the state and passing judgment.
The county magistrate or county head is the administrative head of a county and can do whatever needs to be done.
The number of redundant officials is a one-size-fits-all approach, and mutual restraint can be achieved by using power checks and balances without adding meaningless redundant officials.
The new country will not support useless people who live for free.
