Guo Quanshu also lamented the experience of Huang Chengxuan, his early friend, and felt that the result was not bad.
Guo Quanshu knows very well that the reason why he and Huang Chengxuan are able to reach today's high position is not because of their outstanding abilities, but more because of their early career.
In the case of Guo Quanshu himself, he was tied to a den of thieves. Oh, no, there were not many scholars in Funiu Mountain since the time of Long...
At that time, there were only a few people who were working in civil affairs who could write appointment letters smoothly. After Guo Quanshu joined the staff as a serious scholar, he naturally gained important positions very quickly and became an official at an early age. Section Chief, then became Director of the Department of Personnel Affairs, and then Director of the Department of Personnel Affairs...
No matter how his title changed, since the Funiu Mountain period, he had already been the head of the civil service in the current Da Chu Empire, and was already the Protector of the Country Army at that time.
Subsequently, he naturally entered the Council of Ministers and became the Councilor, the leading civil servant in the Chu Empire.
In the Great Chu Empire, Guo Quanshu, the Minister of Civil Affairs, Yuan Gaofeng of the Ministry of Industry, and Chen Xingkai of the Taxation Department were known as the three most important ministers in the Great Chu Empire.
In the current civil service system of the Great Chu Empire, the three of them are among the most powerful.
However, Guo Quanshu is often worried about not being able to keep up. One day, His Majesty will say to him: I heard that Aiqing is not in good health? Pay attention to rest and take care of your health!
This is not something that has never happened. In the past year or so, more than half of the senior leaders of the Chu Empire have been rotated through. They are all people who rose to the top early, but whose abilities cannot keep up.
In the beginning, there were some people who still stayed in the business even after receiving His Majesty's hint. However, they were either caught for corruption or dismissed from office due to other issues... In short, the outcome was not good.
Then someone got smart. In the early winter of last year, after the capital was moved to Jinling City, the former Minister Zuo of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry wrote a letter begging for the bones. He said that the minister was old and could no longer handle the heavy affairs. In addition, after many years of official service, he was deeply homesick, so he begged for the bones. I return to my hometown to retire!
After Luo Zhixue tried to persuade him to stay, he was sure!
Then he was awarded the honorary title of Crown Prince and Grand Master, the title of viscount, the original title was allowed to be inherited for three generations, and he was given a reduced-level inheritance. He was also given a house in Jinling City, 50,000 taels in cash, and if the person's health is still okay, then he can stay in Jinling. I live in the city, and I happen to have a tea company with no one to help me take care of it...
After the resigned minister resigned, he did not return to his hometown. Instead, he accepted the invitation from the Imperial Property Department and served as the general manager of the Royal Tea Company. This royal tea garden is part of the royal industry and has many properties that have been confiscated. The feudal king's large tea garden.
In this case, His Majesty will not forget his old feelings. He will give you an official position, an honorary title, and a noble title later on. Then he will give you gold and silver in the house, and even arrange your retreat.
Although the general office of the Royal Tea Company is not an official, it is still a well-paying position, and you can stay in Beijing. The emperor will remember you if anything happens in the future.
In short, as long as you are willing to take the initiative to hand over your power, Luo Zhixue will compensate you in other aspects, including glory and wealth, which is much better than being caught and accused and imprisoned!
After someone took the initiative, some of the following people, even if they were reluctant, could only find various excuses to become officials after getting hints from Luo Zhixue.
In this way, more than ten dramas were staged in which the monarch and his ministers broke up harmoniously, and the monarch actively compensated for alimony.
Now in the third year of Chengshun and in May of the tenth year of Chongzhen, half of the important high-level positions in the Chu Empire, mainly the counselors and assistant ministers, mainly the civil servants, have been rotated.
Many senior generals were frightened, thinking that before the world was conquered, they would play the trick of hiding the birds and hiding their bows... Even Xu Zhixian at that time tested Luo Zhixue's tone...
At that time, if Luo Zhixue gave a hint, Xu Zhixian would beg for his bones in minutes...
In this regard, Luo Zhixue was quite helpless...
Even if I want to use up the bird and hide the bow, but the bird hasn't eaten yet, what kind of bow should I hide... Isn't this crazy?
He is now taking action against some high-ranking officials, but that is limited to the civil service system. To be more precise, they are still the group of half-hearted civil servants who had ascended to high positions purely because of Long Long in the early days.
"First Evolution"
A lot of people can't even write official documents well, and they just hold such powerful positions as minister or minister. Isn't this nonsense!
But Luo Zhixue had no such idea about military generals.
There are no senior generals in the military who have been in high positions purely by surrendering to thieves in the civil service system, because these people have been suppressed by Luo Zhixue one or two years ago. Most of them have been suppressed by Luo Zhixue. Those with average abilities were transferred to serve in the garrison, or they simply served as idlers in the garrison headquarters of various provinces and waited to die...
At least a handful of people continue to hold high positions, but these people are all recognized by Luo Zhixue.
At present, most of the senior generals in the Chu army are generals like General Xu Zhixian, the chief of staff, and General Li Chengtong, commander of the First Army, who stood up during the war.
These people dare not say that each of them is a famous general, but they are all generals who have been tested in war and have achieved military merit.
Because you can’t be promoted without military merit...
So Luo Zhixue has no idea of purging senior generals in the military system, well, at least not in a short period of time.
In order to appease these generals and prevent them from thinking too much, Luo Zhixue directly took out a map based on foreign missionaries, plus a world map drawn from his own memory and said: "I have heard that the hinterland of the Central Plains The surrounding Koryo Peninsula, Fusang, Nanyang Peninsula and islands, the northeastern part of Liaoning Province, the Mongolian grasslands, and the Western Regions are all ancient Chinese lands. As sons and daughters of China and descendants of Yan and Huang, it is our duty to recover the lost land."
"Farther away, there are large barbarian lands, such as India, Central Asia, Europe, North and South America and Africa. I have heard that there are Chinese survivors living in the above places and suffering from foreign bullying. My dear friends, we must continue to work together. , strive to regain China’s lost territory as soon as possible and rescue the Chinese compatriots living in foreign races!”
When Xu Zhixian and others heard this, they felt a little uncomfortable with what China had lost and its compatriots said.
How to put it, Luo Zhixue has no problem if he wants to say that the grasslands in the north, the peninsula in the south, and the Western Regions are our lost territory in China.
You can even describe Central Asia and Europe as lost territory. After all, the Mongolian and Yuan armies reached the Danube River hundreds of years ago. There might be Hans among the Mongolian and Yuan armies at that time. Wherever our Han soldiers have been, Naturally, it belongs to us Chinese people.
But, in North and South America, as well as Africa...and India, there are our Chinese remnants, and then we have to run over to rescue them. To be honest, it is a bit nonsense.
But there is no need to say these words. At that time, His Majesty was looking at a map of the world and was opening new territories on the map. He was talking happily. There was no need to make His Majesty unhappy.
And after learning about His Majesty's ambitions, everyone was relieved. They were not interested in losing land without losing land, leaving people behind, and so on. It was just a reason. At that time, you said that aliens are too ugly to live in this world. They pollute the environment, so it is okay to kill them all...
In short, they are soldiers who only know how to fight and cannot understand other things.
Since His Majesty has said that he hopes to listen to music and drink tea on a boat on the Danube River in the future... As ministers, they will naturally work hard to fulfill His Majesty's wish.
And in their hearts, they also felt that Europe, America, Africa and the like were too nonsense, but after killing the Ming Dynasty and the Dongjie, they took over the Korean Peninsula, then took over the grassland, recovered the Hetao, and then moved the northwest front westward. There shouldn't be much of a problem moving to the front line of Hamiwei.
If we fight well, we might be able to further advance the northwest front and directly control the entire Western Region.
If this can be achieved, then the territory of their Great Chu Empire will create new history and directly surpass the territory of previous dynasties.
Opening up new territories is something that will make you famous throughout the ages!
——
Well, no matter how the fight turns out in the future, they are at least relieved now. They don't have to worry that after unifying China, Luo Zhixue will learn from Zhu Yuanzhang and kill generals.
There are still so many territories to be conquered outside, and Luo Zhixue can still use generals like them in the future.
And useful people live longer than useless people!
I just don’t know if the military’s inability to conquer these places will cause His Majesty’s displeasure when it expands abroad in the future!
However, Xu Zhixian felt that even if they were unable to defeat the enemy by then, they could not be blamed for their lack of effort and incompetence, but because it was his Majesty's problem.
Look at the places Luo Zhixue drew on the map where the Chinese survivors lived. He drew the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Pacific Ocean to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west... He almost didn't circle the whole world...
Even if the capabilities of the Chu army explode and the national power becomes strong, the time required to attack and rescue the Chinese survivors in these places, and then occupy these places, is at least ten years.
——
Starting last summer, Luo Zhixue continued to replace the personnel at the senior official level of the ministry, which made many senior officials worried. That is to say, it was only after February this year, with Huang Chengxuan being transferred to Jiangnan Governor, that Luo Zhixue gradually stopped Frequent transfers of senior civil servants were made.
This made many people feel relieved, but even so they still dared not relax.
Even Guo Quanshu, the Counselor, would not dare!
After the imperial affairs meeting, Guo Quanshu, who was scolded by Luo Zhixue for his incompetence in governing officials, returned to his office as Minister of Civil Affairs and continued to think deeply about the administration of officials and tax issues.
It is necessary to rectify the administration of officials, but in what direction should we rectify the administration of officials?
His Majesty has already given a direct answer to this point, which is to rectify it from a tax perspective.
Soon, Guo Quanshu began to find subordinates and asked them to investigate the words and deeds of certain intended targets. Naturally, these words and deeds were not ordinary daily words, but political speeches.
Anyone who has criticized the tax system is a key target of investigation, and then finds a few with high enough levels, and formally petitions to impeach the tax system, trying to subvert the empire's existing unified agricultural tax and commercial tax, return to separate tax collection, and start corvee labor , restored Ding Yin, advocated not paying business tax or 100% tax or even 500% tax, and also called for preferential tax treatment for the gentry.
What to do when you find out?
Directly transfer them from their original positions, and then arrange them to work in other places in name only. In fact, they will be left idle first, so as to avoid affecting the normal work and operation of each yamen and minimizing the negative impact as much as possible.
Immediately afterwards, it was time for the Grand Inspectorate to take the stage, asking their censors to look for all kinds of evidence, and if they found it, they would arrest people directly, kill those who deserved to be killed, and put those who deserved to be in jail!
To rectify the administration of officials, to reverse the atmosphere, to prevent the remnants of the pseudo-Ming Dynasty from infiltrating and corrupting the officialdom of the Chu Empire, undermining the imperial taxation and national policy, and shaking the foundation of the empire's rule, Guo Quanshu knew that it was useless to directly send an official document to each local government office.
It is necessary to establish a few typical cases first, so that the local civil affairs departments, civil affairs offices and the censors in the various inspectorates can follow suit and know how to do it. Only in this way can a great cause be set off, and at the same time Ensure that the general direction is good for the rectification of officials.
A group of people must be killed ruthlessly in order to initially reverse the distorted officialdom brought about by the admission of a large number of pseudo-Ming and surrender officials and educated children of the gentry.
Guo Quanshu estimates that it will take several years to completely turn things around.
