Liu Bei made a decision, and the officials immediately prepared to implement it.
Because the matter was serious and there was really no room for evasion, the execution ability of the bureaucrats was also very strong this time. It didn't take long, just seven or eight days, to dig out the insider in the school department.
There were three moles in total, and each had their own way of colluding with the local government. After Man Chong's strict interrogation, they confessed with tears and snot how they colluded with the local government and all the information they knew.
So Liu Bei learned the ins and outs of this matter, and also had a basic understanding of the officials and local forces involved in the matter. From this, he also had a clear understanding of some of the local mentality.
To be honest, he was very annoyed. Although he had been alert and mentally prepared for the possibility of fraud, he still felt that he could not prevent it despite all his precautions. Totally annoyed.
When there was a need in the local area, he could easily reach the Luoyang court without much difficulty. He found a partner under highly confidential conditions, obtained a series of inside information, and completed the seemingly difficult examination position. Special arrangements.
Originally, according to the rules, in order to prevent candidates from cooperating with each other to cheat, the arrangement of examination compartments was to be arranged according to the differences between states. Candidates from the same state were never allowed to be in the range where they could cooperate in cheating. , to carry out physical separation.
However, in this exam, such a bad incident occurred. It can be seen that it is not only the problem of officials, but also problems in some settings and rules. Liu Bei had to review the rules he made, and then continued to patch this set of rules. Fill holes.
But what is interesting is that each of the ghosts in these three departments has not only connected with one set of business, but they have also expanded the number of businesses, each has connected with several sets of business, and each of them does not know that the other two are also engaged in The methods used in this business are also different.
The only thing they have in common is that they are all very courageous, so much so that Liu Bei was embarrassed.
After investigating these three people, the Third Law Division also dug out the remaining cheating candidates. In addition to the first 103 people, more than 300 cheating candidates were dug out. In total, there were four One hundred and twenty-seven people.
A total of six states, Jizhou, Xuzhou, Yanzhou, Yuzhou, Jingzhou, and Yangzhou, had problems. A large number of officials and teachers who cooperated with local forces were caught in the prefectural schools of these six states.
The Third Law Department quickly sent people to various places to accurately capture them, and notified the local county and national military systems, asking them to cooperate to catch these people, including the local forces who generated the demand, and deal with them together.
By the end of February in the sixth year of Zhenguan, the arrest operation came to an end. The people involved in the case were basically arrested. All the local scholar families, powerful families, and civilian families involved in the matter were controlled for further investigation.
Through this comprehensive investigation, the innocence of most of the candidates was also confirmed. So after comprehensive consideration, Liu Bei decided to admit the results of this selection test. After the cheating candidates were eliminated, the results of the remaining candidates could be reported at the end of February. Officially announced.
As the news spread, the candidates who had been worried in the candidate dormitories for more than a month finally let go and began to cheer and feel a sense of joy similar to that of surviving a disaster.
The two activists, Zhuge Jun and Zhang Yue, who lived in the same dormitory, had been on tenterhooks for more than a month. They did not dare to go out to play except eating, drinking and studying all day long.
They thought that no matter what, everyone would read books and review their homework together. No matter what happened, even if they had to retake the exam, everyone would have enough room to cope without losing their original standards.
It is precisely because of this that most of the nearly 10,000 energetic students during this period were on tenterhooks, full of worries about retaking the exam. They could not play well, nor could they eat well. The huge Luoyang City I didn't even get to have a good time sightseeing.
In this dormitory, Zhuge Liang was the only one who was different from the others. On the third day after the exam, he adjusted his mentality and wanted to let Zhuge Jun and Zhang Yue go out to visit Luoyang together. As a result, the four people in the same dormitory They are all preoccupied and cannot play well.
So a few days later, Zhuge Liang simply went out to visit Luoyang alone, running from the East City to the West City, from the South City to the North City, and also visited various residential areas.
In the market, he saw many, many fresh goods that were not seen in Xuzhou, met many people from the Western Regions who looked very different from the Han people in the Central Plains, and tasted a lot of food from the Western Regions.
In the residential area, he was able to taste many of Lao Luoyang's favorites, some traditional foods, and some new restaurants that were constantly opening.
After visiting for a while, Zhuge Liang found that he preferred these residential areas to the market.
The residential quarters in Luoyang underwent some changes after the Zhenguan Year. Originally, there were gates and corresponding management between each Dafang District, and the curfew policy inside and outside the city was relatively strict. However, after the third year of the Zhenguan Year, Liu Bei gradually relaxed it. The curfew policy gives people greater freedom.
Later, the gates and officials of each district were cancelled, and they were mainly divided into residential areas, commercial districts and administrative districts.
Some necessary and sensitive areas retain a surveillance and review system, and no one is allowed to enter. However, restrictions have been lifted in most commercial areas and residential areas, allowing residents and outsiders to move freely without restrictions.
Therefore, Zhuge Liang was able to visit many places. For more than a month, he traveled to almost every area in Luoyang City, and during this tour, he discovered many interesting things.
What interests him the most is the existence of public toilets.
He had never seen this thing in Xuzhou. There was something similar in the Zhuge clan. Basically, those who could afford it would build a toilet room for their family members to use. They paid great attention to cleanliness and hygiene and would not be able to do it. It's smelly everywhere.
However, judging from Zhuge Liang's experience of living in Xuzhou for so many years, there are still no toilets in many places, and things like open urination and defecation are very common.
Toilet rooms are only found in some relatively wealthy families, and only in cities can the government arrange special personnel to clean up filth. There are not many clean places, and there are many smelly places. This situation is quite common. of.
He had heard that in some places in the countryside there were people who collected human waste for composting. There was also something similar in his family, but he had never seen it with his own eyes.
When he arrived in Luoyang, he first discovered that there were a large number of toilets in the candidates' dormitories and examination halls, but at the time he thought this was normal.
However, later he discovered that there are many spacious public toilets in the streets and alleys of Luoyang City for people to use. If many people cannot get a toilet at home, they will go to the public toilet to relieve themselves. This is true for adults and children, so it is also No wonder he couldn't smell the stinky smell while walking around Luoyang City.
Zhuge Liang went into the public toilet by himself and found that the smell inside was not bad, and there was a clear smell of smoked moxa. The cubicles were arranged neatly. When he opened it, he found a pit inside and a wooden wooden door on the side. Box, wooden box with a pile of paper inside.
When Zhuge Liang just arrived at the candidates' dormitory and saw this toilet and this pile of paper, he was also very surprised.
Although paper was already a purchasable commodity in Zhuge Liang's mind at that time, people's long-term concept of paper being expensive, especially the consumption concept of very expensive paper such as Qingzhou vellum, made Zhuge Liang think that paper appeared in the toilet. It's something incredible.
Then he touched it and found that the texture of this paper was different from ordinary writing paper. It was extremely soft and quite tough, and it didn't look like it could be written on.
Later he learned that this thing is called straw paper, which is a by-product derived from the development of the paper industry. It is specially used in toilets. It is said that the people of Luoyang were not very accepting of this thing when it was first released.
Some people think this is degrading and inappropriate. Some people secretly take the toilet paper home, thinking that this is a sign of respect for the paper.
But later, these things began to appear and be sold in Luoyang Market. The quantities were huge and the prices were extremely low. There were even piles of them in public toilets, and there was really no trace of them being precious.
So people's ideas began to change.
Similar to Zhuge Liang, the students who came to take the exam were not only students from Luoyang Taixue and Sili Academy, but also students from other states because the papyrus had not had time to promote it, so they had various views on the papyrus. However, as time went by As time went by, they gradually got used to wiping their buttocks with toilet paper instead of using toilet chips.
Well, it is indeed softer and more comfortable.
What makes Zhuge Liang a little happy is that the public toilets in Luoyang's public areas are also of the same style as the candidates' dormitories and examination halls.
There is no difference between the toilets in the two places. They are even larger and have dedicated personnel responsible for cleaning them. No matter when you go there, you will not have a "dirty" feeling in the toilets.
In Zhuge Liang's view, this not only reflects the superiority of Luoyang City's governance, but also shows that the emperor who led this matter treated the people equally and did not regard anyone as clean because of whether they were literate or knowledgeable. , who is dirty.
Everyone is clean, there is no big difference.
Therefore, cleanliness is Zhuge Liang's most intuitive first impression of Luoyang.
As for other things related to the toilet, what struck Zhuge Liang the most was that the people who worked in the toilet and were responsible for cleaning the toilet were all not too old but widowed and lonely.
Zhuge Liang once talked about the toilet with an old man who was responsible for guarding the toilet, and learned that the old man was very grateful for the favor of the court.
It turns out that it is difficult for elderly, widowed and lonely people like them to live a happy life.
Their families had been killed one after another during previous natural and man-made disasters, and they were the only ones left. They were still older, and it became unrealistic to reorganize the family and start a new life. No one wanted to marry, or no one wanted to marry. These elderly men and women were originally going to face It's an extremely miserable life.
However, Liu Bei took these people into consideration when formulating policies. He also considered that construction plans such as public toilets are public welfare projects. He did not want to make money but simply made the world of Han Dynasty cleaner and better, so it was better to do good things. in the end.
Starting from Sili Prefecture, where the Luoyang area is located, he ordered officials to conduct a comprehensive census of widowers and lonely people aged over fifty and under sixty.
The physical fitness of these people is no longer enough to cope with heavy agricultural production. It is really difficult for them to allocate land for agricultural production. However, their legs and feet are still flexible and they do not need special support and support.
So Liu Bei thought that they could do some simple public welfare work, which would not be too tiring, but they could have a job, make some contributions, or use the treasury to provide them with an income so that they could be self-reliant.
Liu Bei plans to spread public toilet projects throughout the Han Empire in the next ten years, not only to make the empire cleaner, but also to collect feces uniformly to facilitate unified composting.
At a stage when there is no way to produce chemical fertilizers, if compost can be produced uniformly and provided regularly and quantitatively to agricultural production areas, it can also increase a certain amount of agricultural output value.
If this income is properly managed, it can just cover the part of the expenditure that provides income for this group of elderly, widowed, and lonely people, and will not put too much pressure on the court's financial expenditure.
At the same time, the establishment of public toilets can also reduce the occurrence of epidemics. In a sense, it also provides deeper benefits to the Han Empire, but it doesn't seem so obvious.
This is true from a large-scale policy perspective, but from a small to individual perspective, the emergence and implementation of this policy is tantamount to giving them a way to survive, which is a great thing that saves lives.
"Before, several old guys in our village thought they would not live past fifty. They thought they could live as long as they wanted. If they died one day, if they were discovered in time and collected a body for us, it would be considered a good thing for us. I had a place to go, but I didn’t expect that good things would happen so suddenly.”
The janitor of a public restroom in the northeast corner of Luoyang City was carrying a wine gourd and sipping wine while looking at Zhuge Liang with a smile.
"Emperor Renyi, we people all get our monthly money directly from the government. When the day comes, we go there and line up. There is a long queue at the gate of the government. They tell their names one by one and get the monthly money. So far, there are still some For more than a year, there has never been a month shortage.
Some people say it’s not much, but for me, it’s really enough. Look, I can eat enough, wear warm clothes, and the rest can still allow me to eat two or three meals of meat and drink a pot of wine, which is no more than a day. It's just some cleaning work, the smell is not very good, but compared with the past days, these are heavenly days! "
Zhuge Liang is not a fool. He can distinguish what is truth and what is lies. The old man is sitting at the door of the toilet room. There is a smile on his face that is clearly satisfied. Where is the trace of sorrow and resentment?
(End of chapter)
