When the five-year development plan for agriculture, industry and commerce was finalized, the four years of Chengshun came to an end.
The land of China has ushered in a new year: the fifth year of the Chu Empire's succession, the first year of Longxing in the Western Ming Dynasty, and 1639 AD.
During the Spring Festival of this year, Luo Zhixue held a New Year's state banquet as usual to entertain civil and military dignitaries.
At the same time, a series of ritual activities will be held in the harem.
However, other people have holidays during the holidays. As the emperor of the empire, Luo Zhixue is very busy even during the New Year, with many various ceremonies.
He waited until the third day of the Lunar New Year to have some free time. After taking advantage of the free time to rest for a few days, Luo Zhixue held two more meetings on the sixth day of the Lunar New Year.
It's the sixth day of the Lunar New Year, everyone who should go to work has gone to work, and the handling of various things cannot be delayed.
In the morning, Luo Zhixue first held an imperial council meeting, which was attended by more than 20 ministers and co-organizing ministers in Beijing.
This imperial affairs meeting did not say anything too important. It was mainly a review of last year, affirmation and criticism of the work of some departments.
At the same time, several important personnel appointments were announced at the meeting, mainly the co-election of Admiral Lu Xingye, Minister of the Navy, as Minister of Counsel, and the co-election of Zhang Xu, Minister of Agriculture and Forestry, as Minister of Counsel;
At the same time, a number of co-organizing ministers were appointed and dismissed, several were removed, and a few were newly elected.
In fact, these personnel appointments have been heard for a long time. Last winter, Luo Zhixue had successively summoned important officials to discuss the expansion of candidates for ministers and the adjustment of co-ministers. The parties involved in the appointment and dismissal were also aware of it, so they were not It didn't cause much of a stir.
After this round of adjustments, the number of counselors in the Council of Ministers, the core of power in the Chu Empire, increased from seven to nine.
The newly added two people can also reflect the future political direction of the Chu Empire to a certain extent.
The first is the selection of Admiral Lu Xingye, the Minister of the Navy. The navy did not have a high presence in the Chu Empire before. As the head of the navy, Lu Xingye did not have a high military rank for a long time.
While Xu Zhixian, the chief of staff, and other army chiefs were lieutenant generals, Lu Xingye was just a major general.
When Xu Zhixian and others became army generals one after another, Lu Xingye was still just a lieutenant general.
Last year, in order to enhance the status of the navy and reflect the empire's emphasis on coastal defense and maritime trade, Luo Zhixue specially promoted Lu Xingye's military rank to admiral, which is currently the only admiral in the navy.
Now, in order to further increase the political status of the navy and enhance the importance of coastal defense and maritime trade, Luo Zhixue directly promoted Admiral Lu Xingye to Minister of Staff.
From then on, the military forces in the Senate were not only the army, but also the sea and land.
Of course, there are two ministers of staff of the army, namely General Xu Zhixian, Chief of Staff, and General Wei Kaifu, Minister of Military Affairs. Their overall influence and power are even higher than that of the Navy.
The appointment of Zhang Xu, the Minister of Agriculture and Forestry, as the Counselor. This was also due to political considerations. First of all, in the next five-year development plan, agricultural development is even the top priority. For this purpose, the empire plans to allocate 6,500 taels of silver. Five years of investment.
In addition to spending real money on agriculture, the empire's emphasis on agriculture must also be reflected politically. The appointment of Zhang Xu, who is responsible for agricultural affairs, to the Senate is the most direct and effective political signal.
Such a large Chu Empire formed a political structure with nine counselors led by Luo Zhixue as the core of power.
The division of labor among the nine counselors is also different, and certain adjustments have been made.
On the military side:
Admiral Lu Xingye, Minister of the Navy, is in charge of naval affairs.
Army General Xu Zhixian, Chief of Staff, is in charge of army construction, training, operations and other affairs
Army General Wei Kaifu, Minister of the Ministry of Military Affairs, is in charge of army personnel, military discipline, assessment, military and civilian affairs and other affairs.
Civil service:
Guo Quanshu, Shangshu of the Ministry of Official Affairs, is in charge of official affairs, internal affairs and other affairs.
Chen Xingkai, Shangshu of the Ministry of Taxation, is in charge of taxation, finance and other affairs.
Yuan Gaofeng, Shangshu of the Ministry of Industry, is in charge of industrial, commercial and economic affairs.
Song Zhang, the minister of the Ministry of Rites and Education, is in charge of matters such as ethics, civil affairs, relief, urban construction, and transportation.
Qin Gaolin, the censor of the Supervisory Yuan, is in charge of judicial affairs, including the Supervisory Yuan, the Tribunal, the Patrol Department and other judicial departments (excluding the tax patrol under the Ministry of Taxation)
The newly elected Minister of Agriculture and Forestry, Zhang Xu, is in charge of agriculture, forestry, livestock and fishery, water conservancy, water conservancy, flood control and other affairs.
Each of the above-mentioned counselors has to assist Luo Zhi in managing a large number of affairs, and they are also very busy on weekdays.
And they alone cannot handle the numerous affairs of such a huge empire, so there are also co-organizing ministers under the Counselor.
These co-organizing ministers are also ministers/ministers, or Zuo Shilang of important departments, etc. There are a total of eighteen people.
Nine counselors plus eighteen counselors, these twenty-seven people formed the core power structure of the Great Chu Empire.
What is very interesting is that although these people all have their own jobs, they are in charge of many affairs, and it is basically Luo Zhixue who decides what affairs they should be in charge of. Therefore, the authority of each counselor and co-organizing minister is different. It often changes according to Luo Zhixue's mind.
Adjusting the affairs in charge is also an important measure for Luo Zhixue to balance the power of his subordinates and control the power of the empire.
At the imperial council meeting on the sixth day of the Lunar New Year, Luo Zhixue adjusted and finalized the new core power structure of the empire.
Two days later, on the eighth day of the Lunar New Year, Luo Zhixue convened a meeting of the Imperial Council of the civil service system. The meeting was attended by all ministers and co-organizing ministers of the civil service system.
At the meeting, Luo Zhixue once again reiterated and emphasized the importance and necessity of the five-year development plan, requiring all Gyeonggi and local government agencies to attach great importance to it and carry out relevant work in a timely and vigorous manner.
At first glance, this kind of meeting seems to be all about general talk, talking about some routine words, and not actually solving the task problem, but this is how high-level politics is.
What Luo Zhixue wants is not to raise or solve a practical problem, but to pass on his attitude and let his ministers know that he values the five-year development plan.
If nothing else, after this meeting, many officials will analyze and discuss their meeting speech records word for word, understand their intentions and implement them.
To ordinary people, Luo Zhixue's words may seem false and empty, but for officials, they must understand and even study them, because these false and empty words often represent Luo Zhixue's political thoughts.
If you want to achieve political achievements, you must naturally go in the right direction.
The superiors pay attention to the development of agriculture, so they should engage in agriculture. Only in this way can they be promoted quickly.
The few words Luo Zhixue said more recently have been spread throughout the imperial officialdom and even among the people along with the official newspapers and various official documents.
"Food is the most important thing for the people."
“Having enough food is the last word”
"The issue of food and clothing is the core issue."
“No farming, no stability, no work, no wealth, no business, no life”
These seemingly simple sentences contain the core of the five-year development plan and the shortcut to promotion and wealth.
Not surprisingly, after a few months, local governments in the entire empire-controlled area will launch vigorous agricultural production activities, regardless of whether it is land reclamation, re-cultivation, or the construction of water conservancy facilities, etc. Those officials There will be conditions to do it, and if there are no conditions, conditions will be created to do it.
Because of this kind of thing, if you do well, you will be promoted, but if you do poorly, you will be demoted without any discussion!
This is especially true for Yingtian Mansion, which is at the foot of the emperor. From the beginning, Yin Zhengyue of Yingtian Mansion has been shouting every day that agriculture is the foundation of the empire and the foundation of people's livelihood. He quickly introduced a series of policies to encourage agriculture, such as agricultural tool subsidies, grain seed subsidies, etc., and A large amount of funds were squeezed out of local finances and prepared to be used to build various irrigation and flood control facilities in the countryside.
In order to raise money, a large number of gentry were convened and a naming charity auction was held. If a canal was to be built, the naming rights were auctioned. After the gentry paid, they could name the canal after themselves or a designated name.
This goes for bridges, roads, etc.
Not only will I name you, but I will also erect a big stone tablet for you so that your good name can be passed down to future generations.
Not to mention, those wealthy gentry are just like this... There is a scholarly family in Yingtian Mansion who took the initiative to donate the funds needed to build four canals and a bridge in their hometown, all using their father's money. number as a name.
Of course, most gentry also have limitations, that is, they are often only willing to donate money to build bridges and pave roads in their hometowns, and generally ignore people from other places.
Yingtianfu is trying various ways to raise funds to build basic water conservancy irrigation and flood control facilities.
In Zhenjiang Prefecture next door, the new local prefect is quite strange.
In order to persuade farmers, well, and more importantly, to gain a clear name, it would be best to let His Majesty know and praise him. The Zhenjiang prefecture and a group of officials went to a wasteland in the suburbs to open up wasteland for farming just after the New Year...
More than a hundred officials went to farm for a day, which showed their pro-agricultural attitude and was very good. After all, the emperor has to do the farming himself.
But it is not normal for you to take people there for seven or eight days in a row and live directly on the field. It is not normal for you to pretend that you plan to work on the field for a whole year.
There were more than 100 officials, many middle- and high-level officials with a lot of things to do, but he took him to farm, and then the Zhenjiang prefecture's Yamen and several other Yamen were paralyzed...
Not only a lot of administrative matters have been squeezed...
At the same time, many farming matters that should have been handled during this period were also delayed.
The plan for the year begins in spring. Instead of doing serious agricultural affairs, local officials go out to put on a show. Even if they put on a show themselves, they also bring hundreds of people to the show.
The most important thing is that it is not the time to perform the sacrificial ceremony yet. Generally speaking, the sacrificial ceremony for farmers is held on the first day of the second month of spring, and the emperor is doing the plowing at that time.
It's only been a few days since the Chinese New Year, and the fifteenth day of the first lunar month has not even arrived... I chose the wrong time for the show.
After learning about this, Luo Zhixue said with a dark face: People who do not do practical work and just make noise to win the public should never be used!
Not long after, this weird prefect was beaten to the end...
However, there are only a small number of such weird officials. Most of them are people with relatively normal IQs. Regardless of whether they are really serving the farmers, doing political achievements to get promoted, or simply taking advantage of this wave to make money from the numerous agricultural subsidies. Despite one vote, most officials are still very active in doing these agricultural affairs.
For a time, there was a vigorous wave of land reclamation, farming, and the construction of various irrigation and flood control facilities in the areas controlled by the Chu Empire!
