Chen Wei and Li Zhi both felt a little worried about King Yan's decision.
Chen Wei weighed it again and again, and still advised, "Your Highness, I believe that using severe punishments and heavy punishments to deal with chaos can indeed have a good deterrent effect in a short period of time, thereby quickly quelling this chaos. However, it is also very likely to bury the truth." Leaving hidden dangers is not good for the long term.”
Perhaps in order to show his value and loyalty, Li Zhi also said, "Many well-known households participated in and supported this chaos. It is reasonable to impose certain punishments, but going too far is not enough. In any case, rural governance still depends on these people." To maintain it, being too harsh will inevitably cause them to become alienated from the imperial court, drifting further and further away from the imperial court, and even becoming more antagonistic. Then the vast countryside will fall into long-term turmoil and disorder..."
After Li Zhi had said a lot, Chen Wei continued, "I have learned about the farm system created by His Highness. It has indeed greatly improved the governance of the grassroots, but the prerequisite is that the land needs to be managed intensively. But Fujian Qian There are thousands of mountains and valleys, and the distribution of fields is fragmented, so there is no possibility of centralized management. In this case, we can only rely on ordinary households to assist the court in managing the lower-level countryside."
After hearing these words, Zhao Mengqi frowned and fell into deep thought.
This grassroots governance must not be ignored, otherwise no matter how beautiful the superstructure is, it will be nothing more than a sand block and will collapse at any time.
The bureaucratic system of ancient China usually had states and counties as the lowest level, so county officials became "officials close to the people", which is the so-called "imperial power does not extend to the county."
But how can a limited number of county-level officials personally manage all the people within their jurisdiction?
Therefore, there must be a more grassroots administrative organization to complete various tax, corvee, public security and other errands.
In the Song Dynasty, a relatively complete grassroots governance system had been formed. According to the actual conditions of different regions and different groups, the specific models would be different, which can be roughly summarized as Baojia and Xiangyue.
Generally speaking, various positions are held by a group of rural people who receive no or less official salary, which is the service system, in order to implement the policy of "ruling the people by the people."
Although the nature of the rural administrative organization is biased towards autonomy, the performance of these tasks also requires abilities and related resources, which the poor obviously do not have.
As a result, this grassroots power was monopolized by "rich people" such as rural government households, scholars, landowners, wealthy people, and large clans and families.
Governing the rural grassroots by enriching the people has indeed achieved good results in helping the country and maintaining social order at the grassroots level. Therefore, the internal society of the two Song Dynasties was relatively stable.
However, there are also many negative impacts, such as transferring taxes and servitude, taking advantage of others, bullying the poor and weak, violating laws and regulations, etc., which are common. The court's control over local areas is becoming increasingly weak.
It is not that the imperial court has not discovered this, but the constant internal and external troubles have caused the finances to fail to make ends meet. There are no longer enough economic resources to strengthen grassroots governance, so they can only let it go.
Moreover, the scholar-bureaucrats at this time no longer focused their energy and attention on governing the country and the world as before, but put self-cultivation and family integrity first, and began to manage more and more local affairs that were closely related to their own interests.
A large number of them live in the countryside, controlling the grassroots political power and becoming "local emperors". Once the imperial court wants to harm their private interests for the sake of national interests, they will defy the government and obstruct resistance.
If it weren't for Zhao Mengqi's troubles, they could still maintain a relatively peaceful relationship with the court, dragging the entire country to slowly rot.
Now because Zhao Mengqi was ignorant and insisted on cutting their flesh, they took a more violent approach to fight.
Zhao Mengqi did not intend to coddle them, but at present, purely using force can only treat the symptoms, and it is fundamental to find ways to take back the power of grassroots governance.
After thinking for a long time, he looked at Chen Wei and Li Zhi and said, "I think that although the original rural system can still be barely maintained, it has actually reached the point where it has to be changed, and this is the best time to change the system. Good opportunity."
Chen Wei was confused, "What does your highness mean by this? The imperial court also had the intention to strengthen control over the countryside, but..."
Zhao Mengqi waved his hand and said, "It's nothing more than the lack of authority of the imperial court, financial difficulties, and the lack of an effective monitoring mechanism.
But now that there is enough force to deter, authority is no longer a problem, and I am gradually solving the financial problem. In the end, I need to design a new mechanism. I have an idea that is not yet mature, and maybe it can be tried out in Gutian County. "
Chen Wei and Li Zhi were both interested, "I wonder if your highness has any clever suggestions. I am all ears."
Zhao Mengqi clarified the idea, "Roughly speaking, it is to organically combine the four parts of Xiangyue, Baojia, Social Studies, and Shecang. The specific method is to set up a social study in each district, with social studies teachers and even students according to the new rules. The rural contract manages rural affairs."
"In fact, the previous rural covenants were mainly for moral education, and the people were free to enter and withdraw from the covenants, so there was no coercion. However, the new rural covenants were to resolve civil disputes, punish women who were traitors and thieves, collect money and grain from officials, and manage economic and agricultural affairs. The cultivation of mulberry trees is all integrated into it.”
"Particular attention should be paid to economic production. For example, every year before spring plowing, the social science department will post a notice stating that plowing will be reduced on a certain day, and then send relevant personnel to the farmland on that day to supervise the plowing. It is found that there are deserted farmland and passive farming. He will give him a warning, and when the grain is ripe in the summer, he will cook the same food and go out to save crops. If he finds that the seedlings are growing vigorously on a field with the same soil quality, he will be rewarded..."
"The imperial court also collected ancient and modern agricultural books in categories, explaining in detail the growth laws of various crops, and then compiled them into concise and easy-to-understand books and distributed them to social sciences, who promoted them to the villagers. At the same time, social sciences should also learn about the methods that appeared among the people. Good farming methods are collected, thus mutually promoting the development of agricultural technology."
"In this way, by helping farmers increase their income, social science will naturally gradually establish prestige among the people, which will help to perform other functions stipulated in the township contract. As for taxes, money, food and social warehouses, the rich people will continue to be responsible, and social science will continue Supervision..."
"Of course, social studies still have teaching tasks, mainly enlightenment. Children in the middle school who are over eight years old and under fifteen years old need to be sent to social studies. They go to school in October every year and have holidays in March. In summer and autumn, Help at home. After studying for three years, if there is no hope of becoming a talent, you can graduate and go home. If you have excellent qualifications, you can enter a township school or county school..."
"For repairs, the Royal Education Fund will provide subsidies in the initial stage. Later, when the conditions of farmers improve, the families of school children will provide for themselves. Part of the tax can also be used for subsidies..."
"...Recruiting poor scholars from the whole society as teachers. The initial enlightenment does not require much knowledge. At the same time, following the model of Pingjiang Fuxue, Fuzhou Fuzhou Fuxue will be reformed to train subsequent teachers..."
"This new learning system will be different from the past. It will no longer only teach the Four Books and Five Classics. It will also teach students in accordance with their aptitude and include various subjects such as industry, agriculture, commerce, and medicine. Although it cannot be achieved overnight, the reform experiments in Pingjiang and Lin'an are still very successful... "
As soon as Zhao Mengqi said it, Chen Wei and Li Zhi were stunned for most of an hour.
Chen Wei murmured, "Speaking of which, people generally respect scholars and teachers even more. Teachers still have a very high status in their hearts and should be willing to obey management. This social school focuses on managing farm affairs when farming is busy, and teaching when farming is slack. Educating people seems feasible."
"I'm a bit unclear. What is this Royal Education Fund?" Li Zhi asked.
"This time, there are so many big-name and stubborn people who participated in the rebellion. They confiscated all their properties, sold them and put them into the fund. For example, their fields can be sold to landless farmers. As for farmers who have no money, it is not difficult. Royal Bank Special low-interest loans will be provided to them, and some who are willing to plead guilty and reform will also have to pay a certain fine as punishment and also add to the fund..."
Zhao Mengqi has already figured out a whole set of plans, "These are the general ideas. The specific details will be refined later."
In his design, he did not completely abandon the original rural system, but made sociology the most important part of the power structure.
Sociologists act as managers and supervisors at the township level, and at the county and state levels, they act as supervisors, roughly with a little bit of the shadow of parliament.
In the past, the imperial court chose to use the imperial examination to select civilians to participate in politics, breaking the political monopoly of aristocratic families.
But now that the boy who slayed the dragon has become an evil dragon, and the scholar-bureaucrat group has begun to become a cancer, Zhao Mengqi will further promote the popularization of education, starting from the lowest level, to break the monopoly of the scholar-officials.
To give
In addition to encountering strong political obstruction, the biggest problem in implementing this plan is that it requires massive economic investment.
But at this time, when the Song Dynasty said it was short of money, it was just a lack of money in the court, while the bureaucratic landlord class controlled huge wealth.
Originally, Zhao Mengqi just planned to use deceit and abduction to get the money from these people.
However, this group of powerful people in Fujian wanted to die and started a rebellion. Didn't this give Zhao Mengqiming a chance to steal it?
Of course, this is not a class revolution after all, and Zhao Mengqi cannot drive all the gentry to a dead end, but is still prepared to leave some room.
So he said to Li Zhi, "Li Yunchan, I have an important task for you. Are you willing to accept it?"
Li Zhi was still trying his best to digest the information just now. After hearing this, it took him a while to react.
"Your Highness has an order, and I will go through fire and water without hesitation."
Zhao Mengqi nodded with satisfaction, "Very good. According to what you said before, a small number of the gentry and powerful people in Fujian were involved in the chaos this time. Due to emotions and reasons, these people will be brought to justice in the future, but if the killing is too heavy, there will be Qian Tianhe , so I hope that you will declare my righteousness to them on my behalf. If anyone is willing to return from this lost way, then he is still a good subject of the Song Dynasty. I will not be too harsh. Otherwise, when the army sweeps over, they will only end up with their families and families destroyed. .”
"Huh? Are you asking me to lobby?" Li Zhi's face turned pale.
"What, you don't dare? Don't worry, I'm not asking you to die. I will send a hundred guards to provide you with security. And you don't need to go directly to the center of the rebellion. You just need to go to Nanjianzhou, Jianning Mansion, Shao Wujun, if you have a large army behind you, no one will dare to attack you. After all, there is no benefit in killing you..."
What Zhao Mengqi said was just to comfort him.
Li Zhi smiled bitterly in his heart, knowing that he was not qualified to refuse, "I accept your order!"
Zhao Mengqi patted him on the shoulder and said, "Although the task is difficult and dangerous, no matter whether you succeed or succeed, I will never treat you badly."
Now that I have become a benevolent person and I still say that I am not treated unfairly, is it possible that I can be buried in a coffin made of gold?
Li Zhi slandered, and then listened carefully to the instructions taught by Zhao Mengqi.
