Su Yonglin didn't want to bring state affairs home.
Having no boundaries between home and country is not a good thing for family life.
Zhao Xixin's understanding also made Su Yonglin feel relieved, and made Su Yonglin determined to have a little conversation with those people to let them know what they should do most when the country's new policy was about to be fully rolled out.
It is a very difficult thing to cultivate a smart and capable senior official. Whether it is a military general or an administrative official, those who can reach high positions under him are all experienced and very capable, and they are the wealth of this country.
Su Yonglin didn't want to attack them unless it was absolutely necessary. He didn't want to send the outstanding senior cadres he had finally trained to Sakhalin Island to build houses and ports. It would also be a waste.
As long as they can still do things and as long as they don't commit crimes, Su Yonglin doesn't want to take the last step.
Unless they seek death, end their own path, and completely oppose the people, then there is nothing to say and they must win.
Su Yonglin's ideal society is a society without exploitation and oppression, but it is also a society with clear laws and rules. From top to bottom, everyone acts in accordance with the laws.
This law is not strict, and more regulations focus on the use of public power to create a good environment for people's livelihood without overly interfering with people's livelihood.
This is actually very difficult.
Rules are not a derogatory term. Rules mean stability, and stability means the stable continuation of people's livelihood.
He actually admired Cao Shen, the Prime Minister of the Han Dynasty.
He believes that the term "Xiao Gui Cao Sui" should actually be neutral, and should not become a derogatory term in daily life and be treated the same as "conformist".
Cao Shen was a military general and was an expert in fighting, but he was not very good at founding and governing the country in peacetime.
After the founding of the Han Dynasty, Liu Bang got into trouble and asked Cao Shen, who had great military exploits, to help his eldest son Liu Fei govern the state of Qi and became the prime minister of the state of Qi.
Cao Shen didn't have any grievances, but he didn't know anything about governing the country. Faced with the series of messes in Qi State, he was dumbfounded.
At this time, Cao Shen's advantages as a professional soldier came into play.
Professionals in industries with higher industry barriers often have a better habit, which is to particularly respect the opinions of professionals.
As an excellent military general, Cao Shen knew that there were mountains between different lines, and he also knew that he was unprofessional in running the country and would do bad things, and if he did not go well, people would die. His strong sense of worry and professionalism made him hire a professional Gai Gong to serve him at a high salary. Advise and govern the country.
The professionals he hired with high salaries told him that it was very simple to govern the country. He only needed to act in accordance with the laws set by the country, act in a regular manner, and provide a safe and stable environment for the people. , don’t worry about anything else.
The key to governing a country is that the government must not be overjoyed with merit, pursue political achievements, or interfere too much in people's affairs, and just let nature take its course.
This approach has long been criticized and considered to be a wrong approach that is not enterprising.
It is true that Su Yonglin himself admitted that this approach was problematic, but the real core of this theory of handling affairs is not to do nothing, but to "act according to the law".
For disadvantaged groups, doing this is almost a vocation and is not difficult.
But for those in power, this is precisely the hardest thing to do.
And Cao Shen did it. He not only did it himself, but also led a group of officials under his command to do it together. He governed Qi according to this method. Nine years later, Qi became very prosperous, its economy was also very good, and it developed very well.
After that, Xiao He passed away, and Emperor Hui Liu Ying transferred Cao Shen, who had made great achievements in governing Qi, to the central government as prime minister. Facing new challenges, what Cao Shen did after taking office was surprising.
He fully understood the group of officials under his command, and then dismissed almost all the capable officials who were efficient, eloquent, and ambitious, and promoted a group of honest officials who only knew how to follow the steps and act according to the rules, and ordered them to act according to the rules. Don't go overboard.
After that, he was completely relieved, drinking, eating meat and listening to ditties all day long, and his life was flying.
When Emperor Hui learned about it, he was very angry. He quickly came to ask Cao Shen why he did things like this and whether he deserved his trust.
The story that happened after this is the famous allusion of Xiao Gui and Cao Sui.
Cao Shen is certainly not a fool or a lazy man. He is just a very disciplined and professional person with a good political acumen.
Not to mention that the sharp contradictions in the Central Committee of the Han Dynasty during the reign of Empress Lu did not allow for a capable prime minister to make a difference. As for the general policy of governing the country that Xiao He has set and has been proven to be effective, as long as it is implemented, the people will recuperate and the country will be able to recuperate. Abundance.
What Cao Shen knew more clearly was that the Han State, which had just been founded at that time, had experienced the wars of the late Qin Dynasty and Liu Bang's war against the vassal states. It could be said that the country was in a state of waste and waiting for prosperity. At this time, if you were to carry out political achievements for the sake of personal fame and fortune, , for Han, the result would be disastrous.
After Cao Shen's study, he had a very good understanding of the group of bureaucrats created by the official system.
As the saying goes, serving as an official only benefits one party. Whether it is for your own political achievements or the lives of the people, you must do what you have to do - otherwise, how can you get promoted based on your political achievements?
To get through qualifications? Waiting for a long time?
No, we must take the initiative. If there are difficulties, we must solve them. If there are no difficulties, we must solve them if we create them.
There have been so many bureaucracies since ancient times.
If you don't have any difficulties, how can I get political performance and promotion?
In ancient times, the imperial court would also hold annual meetings, financial meetings, military meetings, etc. At the beginning of the year, the things to be done for the year would be standardized, and how much money would be spent would be prepared. If the budget was strictly followed, the finances would never be Something went wrong.
Of course this is impossible.
Knowing this, Cao Shen suppressed his personal desire to "exercise power" and show off his power, and he followed the rules and did not mess around. He led a group of step-by-step and honest officials to act according to the rules. Not only did he not attract any Empress Lu suppressed her but also passed her three-year term as prime minister safely and died of illness in office.
Later, people called Cao Shen, who drank, ate meat and listened to ditties all day long, a wise prime minister.
The behavior of the ruling bodies of several generations of prime ministers in the early Han Dynasty is called rule by inaction, which accumulated a strong foundation of national power for the Han Dynasty.
During the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, in order to fight back against the Xiongnu, and thus "change inaction into action", in order to unify people's hearts politically, and to conform to the trend of deposing hundreds of schools of thought to only respect Confucianism, the practice of rule by inaction in the early decades of the Han Dynasty was changed. A degree of denial.
But in Su Yonglin's view, no way of governing can be called governance by inaction, and it is impossible to govern the country by truly inaction.
The so-called inaction is essentially a large group of capable people who gathered together to formulate perfect laws in the early days of the dynasty, and then acted according to the rules after eradicating the bad government of the previous generation. Government officials abide by the rules, do not cause trouble, and rest with the people, which is a low loss. organizational form.
During the period of peace construction, the advantages of this low-loss model are obvious. However, during the period of all-out war, this low-loss organizational form cannot adapt to high-intensity all-out war.
If you think about it, you will understand that once human society forms an organization, how can there be any so-called rule by inaction?
The people's feeling of inaction is just proof of the success of the government.
The government has set up a set of rules, and I have entered into them. Everyone works according to the rules, without being detached, messing around, or breaking the rules. As time goes by, the initial achievements become inactions felt by the people at the bottom.
If you want to accomplish great things, you need to be ambitious.
If you want to govern a country well, accumulate national strength, gain public recognition, reduce the cost of governance, restore people's livelihood and the population lost due to war, you need to "govern by doing nothing."
Although times have changed and the time has passed, the inaction-based governance advocated by Huang-Lao Zhixue in the early Han Dynasty can no longer adapt to the current state of productivity. If we forcefully go back to the past, just like Wang Mang, it will be a large-scale social experiment that is destined to fail.
But its essence has not become outdated.
That is, everyone follows the rules, whether official or private.
It is not difficult to get the public to abide by the rules, but it is difficult to get the officials to abide by the rules, because the rules themselves are also made by the officials. How to get the officials to abide by the rules also tests the ability of the rulers to govern.
This is the essence of governing by doing nothing.
Cao Shen did not have the prestige of Liu Bang or the genius of Xiao He, so he kicked out those unstable elements who liked to cause trouble and thought about promotion and fortune every day from his ruling team, and replaced him with a group of honest people who only knew how to follow the rules to help him implement Xiao He's policies. The rules and regulations left behind.
Official compliance with rules means no fuss, less infringement of private interests, lower administrative and judicial costs, social harmony and economic prosperity.
Of course, whether for the Western Han Dynasty or the Ming Dynasty, Cao Shen's approach can only have a positive effect within a certain period of time. When it is the turn of the reform period, this mechanism will inevitably change.
But the problem is that this switch is almost irreversible for ancient dynasties.
Once the ancient court ended this inaction state of frivolous corvee and low taxes for some reason, and after the major events that required action were over, it was almost impossible to switch back. The next time it was ruled by inaction, it would definitely be the next A dynasty.
Because after a promising reform exhausted the people's power, the bureaucrats did not abide by the rules and did not give the people another chance to rest. They continued to be so promising.
However, the people's power in the agricultural era was not accumulated fast enough or in sufficient quantities, and they could not withstand the bureaucrats' repeated "promising" efforts in the form of political achievements. The farmers would go bankrupt at an accelerated pace, and the empire would also accelerate towards its demise.
At this point, Su Yonglin no longer expects the country he founded to remain prosperous even after his death, but he cannot allow this country to decline.
So he decided to establish three sets of mechanisms for the Ming Dynasty and set up three sets of rules under the three mechanisms.
The first set of mechanisms is for the period of peace-building, the second set of mechanisms is for the period of local war, and the third set of mechanisms is for the period of total war.
While he is still alive, he will formulate these three sets of mechanisms and make them into three sets of rules that will be implemented throughout the Ming Dynasty. These three sets of rules will be determined through legal form and become the consensus of the whole people.
If something happens to the Ming Dynasty in the future, we can judge it according to the three situations and decide which set of mechanisms to activate.
From what Su Yonglin has learned, it is relatively easy to change from inaction to action, but it is quite difficult to switch from action to action.
the reason is simple.
In the state of inaction, the government abides by the rules and cannot do whatever it wants. The people rely on the rules and have strong counterattacks. The government needs more concessions and benefits to the people, so it is more difficult to be an official.
In short, officials who want promotion, political achievements, and fame will not be very comfortable in the inaction period.
In the state of action, due to various needs, the rules of the state of inaction were broken, and official power began to freeze the previous rules. The tentacles of power penetrated into all aspects of society, and power suddenly increased, making it easier to carry out general mobilization.
The manpower, material and financial resources mobilized under this situation were quite terrifying. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty used this to mobilize the entire Han Dynasty to launch an unprecedentedly fierce strategic attack on the Xiongnu.
"Becoming an Immortal in One Step"
However this does not come without a cost.
