Xinshun 1730

Chapter 1081 Fighting for merit ([-])

"For example, Mr. Lizhou's idea of ​​reforming banknotes originated from the fact that silver was expensive and insufficient in the previous dynasty, so gold and silver were abolished."

"However, the king of Xingguo turned Japan on and off, established an East-West trading company, and established a bank to prepare banknotes, and the inflow of gold and silver increased day by day."

"The concept of scrapping gold and silver proposed in response to the special circumstances of the previous dynasty is meaningless at this time."

The staff went on to say: "Another example is Mr. Chuanshan's idea of ​​mouth tax and rent mediocrity. It is also aimed at the enclosure of land by the vassal princes of the former Huangzhuang, the sly sending of flowers by the students, the excessive collection of eunuchs, the imposition of obligations on mobile households, and the serious unfairness of taxation, etc. The idea of ​​​​overcorrecting for other reasons."

"But in fact, Xing Guogong's reforms in southern Jiangsu proved that the practice of calculating taxes by mouth and canceling the mu tax and allocating it to the poll tax is definitely wrong. Moreover, he followed Zhang Taiyue's whip method and proved that it is feasible. of."

"It's like Mr. Xi Zhai's idea of ​​dividing the teaching. It's just that the students don't know anything, and the country lacks professional practical talents. So it's better than not knowing anything. After studying in the county and becoming a student, all kinds of Learning something at least is definitely better than learning nothing at all.”

"However, Duke Xingguo began to engage in practical studies 20 years ago. In order to meet the needs of overseas trade development, war navy needs, and industrial and commercial needs, the country really has no shortage of practical learning talents at this time. There is not even a shortage. There are even...even some surplus , a group of people who play with cotton, sweet potatoes, and pumpkins; and those who inoculate people with cowpox... What's more, those artillery officers can look up tables. Do they really need to know geometry, algebra, and physics? "

"That's why..."

The staff concluded: "That's why, if we only make changes based on reflections on the last years of the previous dynasty, it still depends on which problems have not been resolved."

"For example, Gu Tinglin's worry about the students, his original intention is to abolish the students in the world, and to use the talents of the world. That is indeed a problem that must be solved in the last years of the previous dynasty. This is the basis of his theory .”

"But now, the truth is not as good as the end. The end of the article lies in the breeding of students. At that time, there were 50 million people, and now there are 80 million. It may exceed one million in the future. And it is in the local area, and it may take people too much." A's handle and upside down."

"If this is the case at this time, the students in Yangzhou are clamoring for a change in learning, only for the Huainan salt business, and it is actually their own selfishness."

"I thought that exempting them would allow them to civilize the place spontaneously. But in fact, they are busy sending land, evading taxes, annexing land, and acting as gangsters."

"That's why, the former priority has now taken the second place; and the previous secondary has now jumped to the top. The original purpose is to let the world elect people who can fight, tax and govern, but now it is actually The primary problem is to solve the rapid expansion of the group of useless students."

"Yes, there are only two choices."

"Either, keep the original preferential treatment and use means to really achieve the goal of letting them educate the place, nurture the people, and govern the county. Even if you spend some money, it's okay to continue the preferential treatment."

"Either way, it is necessary to control the number of students and break the relationship between them. Don't let them pretend to be the local hegemony in the name of the local sages, and even reverse the situation, and the court completely loses control in the local area."

Although, what the aides actually said was quite, quite cryptic.

But Lin Min was still a little ashamed.

The meaning of the staff, if it is not so cryptic, is actually to say that Lin Min is a fake reformer.

Of course, those who remain unchanged are not reformers.

But what he calls for reform is actually holding on to the solutions proposed by others in the past to solve the current problems.It can only be regarded as a fake reformist.

There is always one suitable for him.

It's just a actor in a reform costume, because the emperor seems to like the reform drama, so he put on the reform costume.

Coupled with the reform of the salt administration, he seemed like a joke throughout the whole process... Lin Min's inner depression can be imagined.

Fortunately, I have enough self-cultivation, and because the staff said it in private, and although it is understandable, it is just a piece of advice from another angle.

Even the aides made their words so clear that they couldn't be more clear.

If you are not dancing there in a reform costume, then you can only start reform from those two directions.

If you just want to wear a reform costume and make people feel that you are reforming, then avoid these two most tricky directions, and the rest can pretend to be reform.

However, the problem is not so simple.

Those two seem to be directions that can be reformed, but in fact, the things involved in it are much bigger.

If you think about it a little deeper, you will understand that those two reforms actually point to one problem.

That is: the political conception of the early Ming Dynasty was based on the basic logic of the village sages, township pacts, and village autonomy. The entire national system must be completely overthrown, and a brand new system completely stripped of the Ming system must be redesigned.

This includes the bureaucratic system, the number of officials, the taxation system, the degree of state centralization, the taxation system, the number of talents in the system, the management logic from the county level, etc., and it is almost necessary to design a completely new institutional structure.

But in fact, the emperor himself did not have this will, and he thought that he would never understand.

Therefore, Lin Min didn't know that the emperor's idea was to implement a variant of the Liao Kingdom's north-south official system.

Dig out some places such as Terengganu, Jiangsu, etc., and the remaining places will still maintain the original system operation, and it is even possible to implement the group phase system, and just operate according to the original inertia.

Terengganu, Jiangsu, Jinghai, Nanyang, etc. are another system.Especially in Jiangsu, strengthen the control of centralized power-if the emperor cannot control the entire empire, can he control a province?
With the wealth, industry and commerce, taxation, etc. here as the pillars of the imperial power, relying on external expansion to ensure sufficient income and wealth.

The inertia and traditions of the internal provinces are sufficient to maintain normal operation, and basically there will be no major problems.

These separated special places have strengthened their rule and implemented new policies.

Especially this time around the salt administration reform and the previous Huaihe River governance and canal reforms, the emperor actually spun off Jiangsu.

Jiangsu directly communicates with Beijing through sea transportation.

By abolishing the canal, Jiangsu's tradition of water control in the Celestial Dynasty was stripped away.

The internal core provinces other than Jiangsu and others maintain the logic of the traditional celestial dynasties: the traditional celestial dynasties of water control, disaster relief, small farmers, and suppression.

Jiangsu and other regions and provinces use a brand-new governance logic to expand abroad through overseas trade, control of new commodity grain bases, trade in silver, and external colonial land taxes.

The ultimate goal, the emperor hopes that before his death, he can achieve: raise 20 soldiers, without spending a penny on the people in the core area of ​​the interior.

This is not because he loves the people too much, but because the emperor knows one thing very well. Taking the past history as a mirror and the current reality as a mirror, only those core provinces in the interior can overthrow the dynasty.

The primary task of the core provinces in the interior is neither collecting money nor expropriating taxes, but only disaster relief, stability maintenance, and exemption.

The New Deal provinces, on the other hand, use a brand-new logic that breaks away from the traditional logic of flood control and relief of small farmers in the traditional dynasties to become the power of the imperial power.

If something goes wrong in the New Deal provinces, it will be suppressed by the unlimited manpower of the core provinces in the interior.Jiangsu, there is no danger to defend.The navy has cut off the food, and there is not even enough food here.

If there is a problem in the core area of ​​the inland area, rely on the wealth and resources of the New Deal area to suppress it.

Therefore, if Lin Min can really figure out what he wants.

You can really understand what the emperor is thinking.

It is even possible to really understand what the logic of this change is.

Then, he would not foolishly think about reforming the imperial examination system and reforming the student system.

Because the emperor would never allow it.

The student system and the imperial examination system are the most powerful link to maintain the New Deal area and the traditional area.

This can ensure that the mainstream culture of the New Deal provinces is no different from the mainstream culture of the core areas of the interior.

It also ensures that once the New Deal gets out of control, the more than 2 students in Jiangsu can be used to quickly switch back to conservative.

As for students striking out and making trouble, the emperor saw it as a very simple matter.What are soldiers for?
Suppress it, and then give the sweet dates.

As far as the Tartars entered the customs back then, they could accept the level of continuing to be officials if they shaved their hair and changed clothes. They just need to continue to give them the opportunity to be officials.

In the future, those who should be candidates will still take the exam, and those who should ponder the imperial examination will still ponder.If you don't become an official in a province, you can win the first prize, wear a red robe, go to the inner core area to be an official, and even rule the traditional world.

The students in Jiangsu, the imperial examination tradition, must not be lost.

However, their arrogance really needs to be rectified.

Therefore, the method approved by the emperor in his heart is to rule, to do, to suppress.

After pressing, continue to give sweet dates.

Tens of thousands of students are doing "backups in case they need to fully format and restore the old tradition"-officials can be transferred from other places, but local grassroots cannot find them from other places.

Moreover, the emperor actually liked Liu Yu's handling in southern Jiangsu very much.

Although the emperor knew in his heart that Liu Yu received the money and then distributed it, in fact, he deliberately gave him eye drops to lure him to abolish some preferential treatment.

But in fact, the emperor believed that in southern Jiangsu, since the reform of equal land tax had been completed, further economic suppression of these students was unnecessary.

As for the need to redistribute the collected money every year, the emperor felt that it was necessary to spend the money.

This money was used to buy Jiangsu gentry students to ensure that Jiangsu's New Deal would not be derailed and completely out of the control of the imperial court.

If he was really reluctant to spend the money, he might be in big trouble in the future.

Moreover, the money spent is equivalent to putting chains on the gentry group in Jiangsu. If they are not obedient, they will have no money, which increases the buffer between the court and the gentry.

Economic suppression is unnecessary, but political suppression must still be carried out, otherwise it will be impossible to achieve absolute control of a province by centralized power.

In short, the emperor will never carry out the reform of the imperial examination system, and will never reduce the number of students, and some material subsidies and preferential treatments that should be given must be given.

Even if you know that there are more than 2 people, most of them are useless.However, as long as these 2 people are still there, the mainstream culture will never change, nor will there be divisions and differences, and there will always be a local force that can restrain the emerging forces in Jiangsu.

For a possible "full formatting and restoration of old traditional backups" that may or may not be used in the future, it costs more than 100 million taels a year. Is it worth it?
For Liu Yu, this is four battleships a year, raising a group of people who are mostly useless and useless.

But for the emperor, it was worth it!

However, for Lin Min, a reformer role-playing enthusiast who Liu Yu called "still a conservative, not even good at tinkering", he really couldn't understand what the emperor meant by "changing the original to the new" .

What is this new?
he does not know.

But at this time, Lin Min, who was bluntly told by his staff, thought that he could take advantage of the freshmen's opposition to the reform of the salt government this time, expose their false benevolence and righteousness, and take this opportunity to write to the emperor to test Let's talk about the reform possibilities to solve the problem of students.

If you can, seize the opportunity and earn credit that truly belongs to you in this reform and reform that you accompany almost the whole process.

(End of this chapter)