Of course, rather than talking about resistance, it is better to say that at this moment, the gentry, as a once powerful group capable of confronting the imperial power, has fallen into pieces and is on the verge of collapse.
How can the nobles who have lost the right to inherit classics still have the ability to fight against the imperial power?
If the imperial examination system is established again, it may only take ten years for the gentry's past glory to disappear. Everyone pursues the imperial examination, everyone yearns for the imperial examination, everyone respects the imperial examination, and the imperial examination will become everything to them.
Gentry?
Just useless and old.
Chen Qun thought deeply and felt that the Chen family of Yingchuan should not have any thoughts or needs to oppose Liu Bei on this matter. The general trend of the world is vast. Those who follow it will prosper and those who go against it will perish. The Chen family of Yingchuan will stand firm. After so many ups and downs, are we going to collapse before this final hurdle?
impossible.
After sighing slightly, Chen Qun turned the page.
After that, it was Liu Bei's design of the ninth-rank official law.
As the Chinese saying goes, an internal official is no more than the ninth rank, and an external official is no more than the ninth rank.
Liu Bei believed that the method of determining grades for officials based on their salary was a bit simple and crude.
In his own private opinion, this way of dividing official positions feels the same as modern jobs are not divided into positions, but are called by position income.
Employees are not called employees, they are called three thousand yuan.
The leader is not a leader, not a team leader, section chief, manager, director, etc., but something like five thousand yuan, six thousand yuan, seven thousand yuan, ten thousand yuan, etc.
To call a leader, just say he is a leader worth 6,000 yuan, a leader worth 7,000 yuan, a leader worth 10,000 yuan, etc. It is too straightforward.
Therefore, he felt that the titles of official grades should be changed with more restrained vocabulary and the simple, crude and straightforward divisions should be cancelled.
So he referred to Chen Qun's creativity in different timelines in the future, adopted the division of official levels from the first to the ninth rank, and then designed two job titles, Cong and Zheng, for each rank, basically as officials at the level of chief and deputy. Differentiation, treatment is slightly different.
Correspondingly, Liu Bei also set rank standards for officials and incorporated them into the nine-grade system.
Because strictly speaking, there are only more than 7,000 officials in the entire Han Dynasty, and the remaining hundreds of thousands are all officials. If the officials are not included in this system, it means that only a few thousand people enjoy this system, while the remaining hundreds of thousands are excluded. If you are excluded, you cannot enjoy the benefits brought by this policy.
Not only is this not about politics, nor is it about unity, but it also doesn’t pay much attention to the officials, and it feels like they don’t even regard them as one of our own, which is really unjustifiable.
In the final analysis, most of the people who ultimately implement the imperial decrees are officials. If the officials are not included in the system, management will not be very good, and it will feel like they are learning from unknown sources.
Therefore, Liu Bei thought about it and felt that officials should not be excluded, so he designated the eighth and ninth ranks as official ranks.
From the seventh rank upwards, it is the official rank. From the ninth rank to the eighth rank, the four ranks are all the category of officials. Breaking through this category and upgrading from the seventh rank is the official status.
This setting can also open up the channel from clerks to officials more directly, so that clerks and officials are no longer two completely different entities, but two different distinctions within the same system.
The two are convertible.
If an official makes a mistake, he will be demoted to a clerk.
Officials who have established meritorious deeds can also be promoted to officials.
The officials are the officials at the lower level, and the officials are the officials at the higher level.
At the same time, in Liu Bei's design, all those who passed the imperial examination and entered the ruling group would start from the rank of ninth-grade official, without any special circumstances.
Even if you are the number one scholar in the imperial examination, after passing the imperial examination, you must start from the rank of ninth-grade official, starting from the grassroots level.
The most basic position in the entire Han Empire, the representative of the collective farm, is the ninth rank position. In the Han Empire, which is based on agriculture, it is absolutely unacceptable for an official who does not understand farming and is not involved in production, so Liu Bei made made such a request.
As for the military level, the nine-grade system can also be used to differentiate ranks. As long as the civilian selection is confirmed, it is actually relatively easy for the military to make a covert transformation.
Overall, Liu Bei believes that the Nine-Rank Officials Law can effectively correspond to positions at all levels of the imperial court and resolve some of the political conflicts in the past caused by equal ranks and unequal power, such as the most typical between the prefect of a county and the governor of a state. conflict of rights and responsibilities.
In the earliest times, the rank of the state governor was lower than that of the county governor, but the power was directed at the county governor, and the conflict between the two sides could be considered targeted. The state governor relied on the central imperial power to boss around the county governor, which was essentially an extension of imperial power.
However, in the middle and late Eastern Han Dynasty, the status of a state governor changed to a state administrative official, from a central official to a local official. He no longer relied on the imperial power, but represented himself. His rank was gradually upgraded to two thousand shi, which was equivalent to that of a county governor.
However, the contradiction between the two and the equality in rank in the traditional sense still made the county governor unwilling to obey the state governor. The two sides had great conflicts. They often fought and fought with each other over issues of power and responsibility, causing chaos.
Even after Liu Bei came to power, it was stipulated that the position of the governor of the state was higher than that of the prefect of the county, but the salary level of the two was still 2,000 shi, regardless of whether he was awarded 2,000 shi or 2,000 shi. Speaking of which, it was still 2,000 shi.
Therefore, the huge inertia brought by tradition makes some senior county governors still not take the airborne governor of the state seriously. They still want to gain a certain degree of autonomy in their political status and do not want the governor of the state to really bully them and gain too much power. High power.
For example, Wei Kai, the newly appointed governor of Jizhou by Liu Bei, was an outstanding person among his first students at Liangzhou Prefecture School. He served successively as county magistrate and governor, and he did a good job. He was an honest official and had a noble character. He is highly recognized by both the government and the public.
But just such a person, within three months of being the governor of Jizhou, already had conflicts with the governors of three counties.
The three senior county governors felt that Wei Kai, a young boy, wanted this and that, and treated them like servants. It was really disrespectful, so they joined forces to join in the concert. Wei Kai disrespected the county governor and trampled on them. their dignity.
Without dignity, the county governor could not hold his head high in front of his subordinates and could not govern properly. The state governor's behavior was too overbearing. They were deeply dissatisfied and lodged a complaint with the emperor.
Liu Bei was deeply troubled by this.
Because these four people are doing very well, they are all very effective in political performance, and they have not committed any crimes. They just dislike each other and have personal emotions.
In the end, Liu Bei had no choice but to reconcile with Xi Ni.
Liu Bei has indeed encountered a lot of things like this during his years in power. When the division of powers and responsibilities is not clear enough, it is normal for such problems to occur. This also prompted him to use the Nine-Rank Official Personnel Law to redefine officials. One of the reasons for the problems between ranks.
He wanted to establish clean and clear rules for the new dynasty, so that everyone would abide by them, and there would be fewer quarrels, so as to avoid the recurrence of what happened between Taishi Ci and the governor of Qingzhou.
As far as the Nine-Rank Officials Act is concerned, Liu Bei planned to stipulate that the governor of the state should be a senior official of the third rank, and the prefect of the county should be a senior official of the fourth rank. There is a whole level difference between the two sides in rank.
In this way, the conflict and dispute between the state governor and the county governor that has lasted for more than a hundred years can be completely resolved, and it can also be more clear about the difference between the respective positions of the state governor and the county governor.
Officials are divided into nine grades and eighteen levels. Each level has a corresponding position. This position not only represents the level of status, but also represents the official's salary and welfare level.
Therefore, for some people with little political ambition, official rank may be more important than position.
However, in Chen Qun's view, the most eye-catching aspect of Liu Bei's system is the inclusion of officials into the system. It is clear that officials, as members of the ruling group of the Han Empire, have the right to enjoy state salaries despite their low rank. and benefits, everything is clearly priced.
This was not clear in the past.
In the past, due to financial and political issues, many "officials" who assisted the court could not receive any salary from the court. They were almost non-staff personnel who brought their own rations to work. The court chose to have prostitution for free.
But does free prostitution really exist in this world?
Maybe, but the court will never take advantage of this.
They don't pay wages and still have people to do things. If such people still have a certain amount of power, it's hard to say what they can do to support themselves.
In many past eras, one of the main reasons for the corruption of officialdom was that the court was reluctant to spend money. The gentlemen just wanted to eat their own meat and did not want to suffer themselves. They paid some salaries to the officials so that they could live more comfortably.
When Liu Bei came to Liu Bei, with ample finances, he stipulated four official positions from the ninth rank to the eighth rank. From collective farm representatives to county and county officials, there were a total of forty or fifty positions in these four levels. Included in every official rank.
And this is also the main body of the ruling group of the Han Empire. They will be able to get their share of salary and benefits from the court. Compared with the past attributes of depending on the weather, their lives will now be guaranteed to a certain extent.
Moreover, Liu Bei's method of selecting officials through the imperial examination effectively improved the basic quality of officials, so that the grassroots managers of the Third Reich were no longer those "village sages", but had certain cultural literacy and self-morality. A cultivated "cultural man".
This transformation should be fruitful for the grassroots governance of the Third Reich.
After Chen Qun read it once, he still felt that it was not enough and felt that some parts were not fully understood, so he continued to read it, read it again, read it again, and read it again six times. From morning to noon, he was still not satisfied. I think there is a lot to write about here.
It was finally time for lunch. Yang Xiu, who had a good relationship with Chen Qun, finished handling the affairs at the table. He looked up and saw what Chen Qun was looking at, and got up and called him to prepare to eat in the cafeteria.
Yesterday, after eating in the cafeteria, he chatted with the master chef and heard that there would be fried chicken nuggets for lunch today.
Fried chicken nuggets are high-end goods, and Yang Xiu himself is not willing to eat such high-end food at home, so he happily prepared to call Chen Qun to go to the cafeteria to have a feast and enjoy the special care of His Majesty the Emperor.
Well, everyone knows that the Central Canteen was run by His Majesty the Emperor with the money of the Young Master. Officials working in the imperial court can eat for free, which is one of the employee benefits bestowed by His Majesty the Emperor. Everyone is very grateful to His Majesty the Emperor for his great kindness. .
Yang Xiu stood up and walked to Chen Qun's desk. At a glance, he saw that the piled government documents did not look like they had been processed. He picked up a book and opened it. Sure enough, they had not been processed.
Haven't they been dealt with yet?
He read several books in a row and found that he had not dealt with them, which surprised him.
Chen Qun has always been the king of papers in the cabinet. He is a little expert in handling government affairs. The average efficiency in handling government affairs is 30% higher than that of ordinary cabinet members. Yang Xiu thought he was excellent, but he was also exposed to Chen Qun. Be friends and have good relationships.
In the past, Chen Qun would have finished the morning first and then waited for Yang Xiu to have lunch, but now it was the other way around.
"Changwen, what are you doing? You haven't dealt with so many government affairs? Are you planning to stay up late at night to fight?"
Hearing this, Chen Qun raised his head, blinked and looked at Yang Xiu.
"Dezu? What's wrong?"
"What's wrong? What have you been doing all morning? There are so many government affairs piled in front of you, and you haven't dealt with them?"
Yang Xiu looked at Chen Qun in surprise: "Are you feeling unwell? Are you sick?"
Chen Qun looked at the government affairs piled up on a hill beside him, was stunned for a moment, and then covered his eyes.
"I was so absorbed in watching it that I actually forgot about time! Oh my god... so many..."
"What are you so fascinated by? Can you still forget time?"
Yang Xiu curiously picked up the book from Chen Qun and flipped through the first page.
"Imperial examination and the ninth-grade official law? What is this?"
"This is a brand-new method of selecting and appointing officials prepared by His Majesty in order to reform the inspection system."
Chen Qun sorted out the government affairs report that he had forgotten to deal with, and sighed: "Because it is very important, His Majesty asked for my opinion, so I have been reading it... Dezu, there are too many of these things, and there are other things in the afternoon." Can you help me share some of the government affairs?"
Yang Xiu turned to the second page and was instantly attracted by the content written inside. He was looking at the document enthusiastically and nodded unconsciously.
"Okay, everything is fine."
Chen Qun was overjoyed.
"Thank you!"
Then he stood up and moved half of the documents in the pile in front of him to Yang Xiu's desk.
After coming back, Chen Qun looked at the government affairs in front of him, thought about the workload in the afternoon and evening, and thought about the speed at which he could handle the government affairs, as well as the fact that he still had to find time to write feedback materials to Liu Bei, so he felt that the work was still too much.
So Chen Qun took more than ten government affairs reports and threw them to Yang Xiu, asking Yang Xiu to help him deal with them.
After leaving about two-thirds of the work to Yang Xiu, Chen Qun suddenly felt as light as a swallow and was very happy, as if he had finished a lot of things in the morning.
Then, he felt hungry in his belly, so he pulled Yang Xiu, took the documents in his hand and put them back on his desk, dragging Yang Xiu towards the cafeteria.
"Hurry up and have lunch. Didn't you say there will be fried chicken nuggets today? If you don't go, you won't be able to eat much."
Yang Xiu had just seen the explanation of the content of the section examinations in the imperial examination. He was looking at it with enthusiasm when he was dragged to eat by Chen Qun. He was still a little unresponsive. After finally reacting, Yang Xiu realized what he had just read. Something important.
A brand new method of selecting and appointing officials?
That’s a big deal!
It’s a major event that affects the entire official group!
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PS: It’s really helpless to live in the same world as Xiaoli. After working so hard in life, it turns out that someone has given us a huge blow... I’m not even thirty years old yet. Is it time to enjoy radiation? Why don’t we collectively travel to the second dimension in our childhood? That’s what truly benefits the world, right?
(End of chapter)
