East Factory Governor

Chapter 709
For a time, the political atmosphere across the country was tense.

The officials didn't know what the emperor's true intentions were. Although they were unwilling to be deprived of power, they all chose to remain silent because of the lessons learned from the Donglin Party and the more than 100 officials who had just been rated as "impetuous".

But silence does not mean no resistance, their way of resistance is delay.

If possible, they hope to slowly hand over a year or so, and then wait and see how the situation changes.

After all, this kind of thing has never happened before, maybe the emperor changed his mind later?
Or, will the officials of the DPRK and China take any action?

Qin Shuhuai and Chongzhen naturally expected this situation.

It doesn't matter if officials use dragging tactics, some people are anxious to grab their power.

That is the five hundred judges who have been trained in the past two months.Half of these procuring officers were selected from the Procuratorate, who are proficient in business and have a good reputation. spirit" to make a good start for judicial justice.

Each province has one procurator and two deputy envoys.

The procurator of the punishment was promoted from the original third rank to a senior member of the first rank, at the same level as the governor, and was no longer under the jurisdiction of the governor and chief envoy, but directly under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Punishment.

Each of the following states, prefectures, and counties set up criminal punishments according to the state envoys, prefectural envoys, county envoys, and censors, who are in charge of litigation and criminal matters in a specific area, and are not under the jurisdiction of local officials.

Moreover, in order to let the procuratorate of punishments in various places have the confidence to challenge the local government, Qin Shuhuai also set up punishment yamen in various places. The scale of the punishment yamen is as large as that of the administrative yamen. The BR county-level punishment yamen is the same as the county government. The scale is not even inferior to the county government in terms of form.

After the first batch of [-] judges were devolved to the localities, they soon forced the parental officials from all over the country to hand over their judicial power.The way to hand over power is very simple, that is, they have to issue notices themselves, and in the future, neighborhood disputes, prison lawsuits, and various lawsuits will all be brought to the criminal yamen.

At the same time, with the special appropriation funds from the imperial court, the Mentoring Envoys searched for houses everywhere, trying to secure an office location—this matter did not require the help of other local officials to ensure their independence from the beginning of their establishment .

In short, from now on, regardless of the county magistrate, magistrate or even the governor, anyone who dares to judge without authorization will be dismissed and dealt with severely, and the trial result will be invalid.

It is conceivable that these torturers are not active in this kind of fighting for power for themselves?
In addition to raising punishments and inspectors, the New Deal also ordered the governor to be downgraded from Zhengyipin to Congyipin, and only command the soldiers and horses under his jurisdiction, which is equivalent to the commander of a military region, and is not allowed to participate in politics.

The governor and the governor are the same as the first rank, and the two are rated.The governor is only responsible for the administration of a place, and must not intervene in military and judicial matters.

In addition, the governor's yamen and the governor's yamen should not be located in the same place, and the money and food for the soldiers and horses under the governor's command are all allocated by the imperial court and cannot be settled locally.After the governor received the tax, he would hand it over to the imperial court instead of sending it to the Governor's Mansion. The Governor's Mansion had no right to use the local tax, otherwise it would be regarded as treason.

……

After the officials all over the world waited and watched for a while, they still couldn't wait for the first bird to resist.

The reason is simple, the military all support the imperial court.

On the one hand, it was due to Qin Shuhuai's deterrence, and on the other hand, the interests of the military in the new deal not only did not affect, but improved.For example, they no longer need to be commanded by multiple systems, or their treatment has been specially improved.

In this way, the imperial court's iron fist has a foundation.

The New Deal was advancing methodically amidst the shock, confusion, and hesitation of the whole country.

Finally, batch after batch of officials began to understand and accept the New Deal.

Because they have no choice.

In particular, a group of new grassroots officials worked very hard, explaining the intention of the New Deal to farmers, merchants, and gentry over and over again.

Why are they working hard?
Because their political achievements are closely linked to the implementation of the New Deal.

For example, this year, the most important item in the evaluation of local government officials is the number and proportion of landless tenant farmers and refugees who have obtained arable land.

According to Qin Shuhuai, this indicator is called "one-vote veto system".

To put it simply, if this job is not up to standard, no matter how good the other jobs are, they will have to leave.

These low-level officials have studied hard for more than ten or even decades before they get into an official position, so they naturally don't want to lose it easily.

So they immediately showed their abilities and tried their best to persuade the local big landlords to sell their fields.

This level of hospitality is even worse than the "intermediary" of later generations.

For example, a certain big family has a thousand hectares of fertile land.That's great, the county magistrate first sent Lizheng to be an outpost, and made a big publicity about the "policy", then the county magistrate went to "visit" with gifts, and asked for a while, and finally the county magistrate personally dispatched and licked the The old face went to the door in person.

It makes you feel embarrassed if you don't sell the land!
The strong executive power of the Chinese nation is fully reflected at this moment—although the execution is a bit distorted.

How distorted?
A wealthy family in southern Shaanxi wanted to open a business firm. According to the new policy, he had to go to the county government to apply for a "license". As a result, the county magistrate dawdled strangely for several days and failed to do so.After careful inquiry, I found out that the county magistrate knew that his family had [-] mu of land, and he would never get a "license" for him unless he sold the extra [-] mu of fertile land.

There is a county magistrate in Huainan, who enlisted civilian husbands in the name of repairing the Huaihe River.In previous years, rich families could be exempted from this kind of corvee as long as they paid money, but this year the money is not easy to use.The county magistrate is also a thieves. He specializes in expropriating the sons of rich families, and treats them equally regardless of what they say.How could the sons of these rich families do such a job?They all went to plead for mercy.As a result, the county magistrate explicitly stated that as long as they sold the extra [-] mu of land, they could be exempted from corvee labor.

In short, if you say that these low-level officials are smart, they are really smart to the limit.

Since the implementation of the New Deal, Qin Shuhuai has known about such things a lot.However, he just opened his eyes and closed his eyes, and at most gave a warning without pain, but every time there was thunder and rain.

He knows too well that compared with such trivial details, letting landless peasants have land is the most important thing and the kingly way!As long as these officials don't take over the land of the rich, don't hurt people or kill people, he can't be bothered!
He just needs to implement the New Deal quickly!
Gradually, the landlords and powerful landlords across the country finally realized that the imperial court was not just talking this time.Faced with the reality that one mu of land has to pay one or two taxes, and under the softness and hard work of countless grassroots officials, many big landlords began to accept the New Deal, selling their land to the government in installments of 20 years at the market price, and then the officials Then the land was sold to registered farmers who needed the land.

During this period, the General Administration of Customs of the Ming Dynasty was also established. The first Prime Minister of the Customs was Li Fu, the former governor of Zhejiang who had secretly organized smuggling at the port of Ningbo Prefecture.

The New Deal is being implemented step by step and accepted by more and more people.

But the problem of money has been exposed again.

To implement the New Deal, it is necessary to establish various institutions in various places, such as customs, taxation departments, criminal yamen, etc. This not only involves the construction costs of various office yamen, but also inevitably increases the number of public officials—all of which will eventually lead to It comes down to the word "money".

In addition, increasing the wages of officials and soldiers requires money.

It is impossible for the tax to increase as soon as the New Deal is implemented.For example, the taxation department alone had four months of preparations, and it was only in June that the area north of the Yangtze River was basically covered.The customs are similar, and it will take some time to formally operate.

Therefore, in the first half of the year, the income of the Daming treasury was extremely small, and it was estimated that it would not exceed 80 taels.

According to a rough estimate, at least 500 million taels of silver are needed for the New Deal to come into effect.

So what to do with the 420 million shortfall?

Qin Shuhuai managed Chongzhen to ask for the money, but he didn't expect Chongzhen to play bachelor with him, and there was only one word for it, "poor".

In the end, Chongzhen finally gritted his teeth and agreed to settle the 100 million taels by himself—according to him, he was going to sell the treasures in the palace, but Qin Shuhuai didn't believe it.

But he also knew that after Chongzhen took out the 100 million taels at the bottom of the box, he might really have no money.

After much deliberation, he thought of Shanxi Merchants.

Shanxi merchants have money, can the imperial court just take care of them to borrow money?
As for what kind of excuse?

Qin Shuhuai thought of a word: national debt.

So he went to Shanxi himself, found Zhang Desheng in Taiyuan City, and asked Zhang Desheng to find all the top Shanxi merchants in Shanxi.

Needless to say, the current Zhang Desheng is doing well in the Shanxi business circle.The first reason is that the Zhang family's family background and business connections are not weak. As for the second reason, of course, it is because Qin Shuhuai has done live advertisements for him several times.

Everyone in the Shanxi business circle now knows that Zhang Desheng, the second son of the Zhang family in Taiyuan City, is the father-in-law's brother-in-law (although Qin Shuhuai has never admitted this), so don't worry about doing business with the Zhang family!
Not only do you feel at ease, but you are also close to the Zhang family, so they can cover you if something happens.

In fact, officials from all over Shanxi did take good care of the Zhang family - because they also believed that Qin Shuhuai and Zhang Desheng were sworn brothers!
Under such circumstances, it is difficult for Zhang Desheng not to make a fortune.

Therefore, when Qin Shuhuai found Zhang Desheng and asked him to do something, Zhang Desheng almost jumped up and agreed.

Three days later, Zhang Desheng gathered together the seven famous families in the Shanxi business circle.The patriarchs or owners of these families rushed over in person without exception.

The next thing is very simple.

Qin Shuhuai said that he borrowed money from them on behalf of the imperial court. The total amount to be borrowed was 350 million taels, which was expected to be paid off in three years, and the annual interest was worth eight hundred percent.

In order to reassure them, Qin Shuhuai proposed to use the customs duties as a mortgage - if the court cannot pay them back, then they will be given as much as the customs duties until the repayment is exhausted.

Qin Shuhuai believed that these merchants must know the value of the customs.

Unexpectedly, they were silent at the same time.

It's not that they don't believe it, it's that they don't dare.

Who dares to ask the court to guarantee, isn't this a clear statement that they don't trust the court and the Duke of the country?

Moreover, if the Duke of the country doesn't care about this matter later, who do we ask to get the money from the customs?
350 million taels is a large amount, so they naturally have various worries.

This is the nature of businessmen, very realistic, but you are beyond reproach.

Qin Shuhuai had no choice but to use the Jianghe Gang's wharf as a guarantee in the end.

The Jianghe Gang is not part of the imperial court.

And as the leader of the gang, Qin Shuhuai can call the shots.

As soon as this condition came out, the seven major Shanxi merchants immediately agreed - they would rather believe that the court would break the contract, and they would never believe that the dignified Duke would break his promise.

Everything is going smooth.

The New Deal is in full swing, taking root and sprouting.

Time, it's June in a flash.

(End of this chapter)