Wenhua Hall.
Zhu Yunzhen was thinking about what to do next.
He is very clear that the establishment of the People's Supervision Department cannot fundamentally solve the problem of official corruption.
Fighting corruption has been a long-standing problem since ancient times.
But no matter when, corruption accumulates slowly and starts bit by bit.
If you wait for a person to become seriously ill and then treat him, even if he can bring him back to life, it will not be considered a miracle doctor.
The real miracle doctor is to keep a person healthy while he is not sick.
A minor illness will not develop into a serious illness.
It seems that no one has been saved, but in fact it has saved thousands of people.
It is said that those who are good at fighting do not have great military exploits. This is exactly the case.
This is also the meaning of the People's Supervision Department.
Treat illnesses and save people, punish those who go before and those who follow behind.
The People's Supervision Bureau can at least bring about a drastic change in the atmosphere on the surface.
Corruption can only be carried out in secret and does not dare to be exposed in the sun.
In the feelings of ordinary people, the change in the atmosphere can be truly felt.
Jinling alone is of course not enough.
The Civil Supervision Department continues to send troops to local areas.
However, in order to ensure the purity of personnel, the expansion speed is not too fast.
Zhu Yunxuan repeatedly told Yang Shiqi that for this kind of thing, he would rather go slower than strictly select people and train them strictly.
All beginnings are hard.
The People's Supervision Department selects people from scratch.
It is very important to strictly control and maintain the purity of the team.
With the deepening of the Civil Supervision Department, the amount of commercial tax collected has actually increased a lot.
However, many ordinary merchants feel that the business environment is better than before.
The extortionist yamen disappeared, at least on the surface.
The kind of careless government officials who used to be careless, collecting money and extorting money at will are now keeping their tail between their legs.
Everyone knows that the Civil Supervision Department is watching.
Once it's stabbed there, it won't be able to eat and will wander around.
For a senior official, it may be that he will be reprimanded for being lax in his duties and may have a mark on his official merit book, which will affect his official career.
But if the official is affected, shouldn't he punish the government servants heavily when he comes back?
Taking the blame and losing the errand are considered light things!
Who dares?
As the saying goes, "The king of hell is easy to deal with, but the devil is difficult to deal with."
From a national macro level, of course those who are extremely corrupt and powerful have greater influence.
But from the perspective of ordinary people, the people they deal with are the lowest level official servants.
The county magistrate who ruined his family, the prefect who exterminated his family.
A single official making things difficult can make many people speechless and suffer a lot.
They have no rank and are not officials.
In the eyes of officials, they are just tools that can come and go when called upon.
But in the eyes of ordinary people, they are untouchable.
After the establishment of the People's Supervision Department, this situation was finally completely reversed.
Naturally, the people praised him.
"His Royal Highness, this is a great move. Since ancient times, the most difficult people to manage are subordinate officials."
Yao Guangxiao sighed: "It is said that the emperor and the scholar-bureaucrats rule the world together."
"But according to the poor monk's opinion, in fact, those who rule the world together with the emperor are not scholar-bureaucrats, but subordinate officials."
"It's the most difficult to govern them."
"Not to mention governing a country, even governing a subordinate official in a county is extremely difficult."
"Now His Highness Taisun has set up the Department of Civilian Supervision. It is still difficult to supervise high-ranking officials and important ministers, but it has a miraculous effect on the lower-level subordinates. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful!"
Corruption among high-ranking officials is often very hidden.
The Department of Civil Supervision alone can detect some, but it is impossible to detect them all.
In other words, if you are not prepared at the beginning, you can find out a lot.
But as time goes by, they will become more and more secretive, and it will be difficult to detect them.
This is the saying: "The Tao is as high as one foot, and the devil is as high as one foot."
Of course, that doesn't mean that the People's Supervision Department has nothing to do with high-ranking officials.
At least, they can no longer act as arrogantly as Ouyang Lun did before.
It can only be said that after they hide themselves, it is difficult to find evidence.
But subordinate officials are different.
Subordinate officials have to deal with the common people.
What they did and what they did not do are unknown to the people.
Who dares to act recklessly after a casual report?
Moreover, there are many subordinate officials with good nature who were forced to accept bribes and collude with their colleagues under threats.
Otherwise, you will be squeezed out and find it difficult to gain a foothold.
But now that they have the People's Supervision Department, they can justifiably refuse.
In fact, there are not a few such subordinate officials.
But when bad coins eliminate good coins, they can only live with the light.
Just like many people in later generations hate drinking, but in officialdom and workplace, they have to drink.
Only a clear and strict prohibition on alcohol can stop this evil trend.
This is the importance of high-level governance.
Just relying on the grassroots itself, no matter how good his character is, there is nothing he can do!
Because he cannot change the environment, he has no choice but to obey.
Only those at the top, those who control the direction of the entire society, have the ability to make fundamental changes.
That's exactly what he did.
Zhu Yunxuan smiled faintly.
When he first traveled to the Ming Dynasty, he also thought that there must be no corruption in the Ming Dynasty in this era.
After all, Lao Zhu killed so many corrupt officials.
The skinned officials are still being offered in front of the county government office.
But what he saw and heard later overturned his original naive idea.
In fact, the officials and subordinates in this era were much more arrogant in their treatment of the people than in later generations.
If the Bu family thought they had Lan Yu's backing, they would be very arrogant.
The government officials also dared to openly accept bribes from tea shed owners.
Ouyang Lun's servants were so bold that they even dared to beat up the tax collectors of the imperial court.
All these are not enough.
Slowly I figured it out.
In the final analysis, people of this era still have the idea of privilege that goes deep into their bones.
I'm already an official, I'm a noble of the imperial court, I'm a relative of the emperor, so what's the matter with sitting on your head and shitting?
Are you still not convinced?
And ordinary people just swallowed their anger.
Secondly, although there are provisions for petitioning, it is by no means an easy task for the people to sue an official, even if it is a government official with no rank.
The cost of filing a complaint is very high.
It is too high for ordinary people to bear.
If it is a case of overstepping the level of prosecution, it does not matter whether it is justified or not, it will be dealt with first.
Therefore, unless they are forced into desperation, they will not sue at all.
To put it bluntly, the system is set up so that you are only allowed to sue officials if you have serious grievances.
Ordinary grievances should be endured by the common people. This is how people behave.
The existence of the People's Supervision Department is a bit like the reporting hotline in later generations. You can file a complaint at any time without any cost.
Moreover, the Civil Supervision Department is a separate and independent agency and is not subject to the constraints of local governments.
Through strict internal control, we will eliminate the possibility of collusion between them and local officials.
This still doesn't fundamentally solve the problem.
But both officials and subordinate staff can be allowed to behave with their tails between their legs.
In fact, it also gave the good people among them the confidence not to be threatened.
Let the social atmosphere improve.
Otherwise, in that environment, no officials or subordinates can change anything.
Further governance requires the accumulation of time.
"You don't need to flatter me either."
Zhu Yunzhen smiled and said: "Speaking of which, the establishment of the Taxation Department is imminent. However, the Taxation Department is not a trivial matter, and I have not yet found a suitable person to be in charge."
"Old monk, do you have anyone to recommend?"
Finance and taxation must be separated.
The current situation, in which the Ministry of Household Affairs is single-handedly responsible, urgently needs to change.
Moreover, in Zhu Yunzhen's vision, the Taxation Department will be an extremely powerful organization.
Just like the tax bureau of the Yingjiang Empire in later generations, it is pervasive.
There is another thing, that is, the emperor's relatives, nobles and heroes must pay the same taxes as ordinary people.
Now it is limited to commercial tax, but in the future it will be expanded to land tax and all other taxes.
Since ancient times, all dynasties have made resisting land annexation a top priority.
But on the other hand, it gave officials and nobles the privilege of not paying taxes.
This is the exact opposite.
How can those who pay taxes compete with those who don’t?
If you can't compete, won't you have to be merged?
Then how can we oppose land annexation?
Therefore, throughout the ages, this problem has been almost unsolvable.
Is there really no smart person who can see through all this?
of course not!
It’s just that the people in power are the nobles and officials!
How can there be any reason in the world to operate on oneself?
Therefore, the slogans against land annexation were shouted loudly.
But they turned a blind eye to the fundamental problem.
Even if the emperor knew it well, since he had to rely on officials and nobles to govern the world, he could only let it go.
But Zhu Yunxian was determined to solve this problem.
The establishment of the Taxation Department will directly address this point.
Of course, he won't be too aggressive.
After all, Lao Zhu is still alive and still needs the support of his old man.
There is no need to worry about land tax and other taxes.
But just for the current commercial tax, the Department of Taxation is supervising it without delay.
Otherwise, Zhu Yunzhen believed that the emperor's relatives, generals and nobles, who were temporarily afraid of paying taxes due to the deaths of Ouyang Lun and Zhao Mian, would soon find new ways to evade taxes.
As a time traveler, he firmly believes in this.
Treating the symptoms cannot cure the root cause.
But in this case, the candidate for the head of the Taxation Department is extremely critical.
This person must not only have sufficient talent, but also be selfless and unafraid of pressure from any royal family members or military commanders.
Zhao Mian, the Minister of the Ministry of Finance, who committed suicide before, is a lesson learned from the past.
The reason why he dared to take bribes was partly related to his own quality, and partly related to his greedy wife.
More importantly, he was in the middle of the situation and could not refuse the pressure from the emperor's relatives and distinguished officials.
If Ouyang Lun asked him to issue a penny tax payment document, he would have to do it and would not dare not do it.
If you open it to these people, you can get it for yourself.
This is the "broken window effect" in psychology.
Anyway, no matter what you do, it is illegal.
Why not catch it for yourself?
As a result, Zhao Mian fell deeper and deeper step by step.
The head of the tax department has to bear great pressure, and no ordinary person can handle it.
In Zhu Yunxun's view, some people failed to leave their names in history, perhaps just because of bad luck.
But ability and talent are no problem.
However, he asked himself that he did not have the eyes of a god to be able to see through people completely at a glance.
So ask Yao Guangxiao.
After hearing Zhu Yunzhen's question, Yao Guangxiao pondered for a long time and then said: "The position of director of the Taxation Department is not a trivial matter, and ordinary people cannot do it."
"When promoting a virtuous person, one should not avoid relatives. However, the poor monk has a candidate to recommend to His Highness the Grand Sun."
"I just hope that His Majesty the Grand Sun, don't think that this poor monk has any selfish motives."
Zhu Yunzhen laughed loudly and said: "Old monk, just say it, I will not blame you."
"good!"
Yao Guangxiao said: "There is one more thing. If you want to appoint this person, your Majesty must agree. Whether His Highness Taisun can do it requires careful planning."
Zhu Yun asked with a smile: "Is it possible that he committed some serious crime and was relegated?"
It is not surprising that there are such characters.
After being demoted, he lived a life of depression and frustration.
There is talent but no place to display it.
Zhu Yunxuan also believes that there are many such talents who have been buried in history.
"That's not true."
Unexpectedly, Yao Guangxiao shook his head and said: "It's just that this person's identity is not trivial."
Then, he said seriously: "The poor monk recommends King Yan Zhu Di to His Highness Taisun for the candidate for the head of the Taxation Department!"
(End of chapter)
