Chastity Layman 2

Chapter 1459
The six people who were waiting for the edict soon all received the edict and entered the palace from the north gate.

The young emperor Li Hao was very polite to the Beimen scholars, and asked his servants to give them tea. There were no outsiders in the Zichen Palace, and the six of them often went in and out of the palace, but they had already gotten used to it.

After listening to Yang Sixu speaking on behalf of the emperor about Qin Xiaozhong's proposal to establish a provincial system during today's court meeting, the six of them immediately began to think about it.

Several of them are not high-level officials. Liu Yizhi and Yuan Wanqing are both fifth-rank officials, but they are still sixth-rank officials. The other four are sixth-rank officials. Explain the situation of these Beimen bachelors.

"I believe that the biggest change in setting up provinces in remote areas is the enhancement of local power in the provinces. According to Qin Xiang's proposal, although the provinces are agencies sent by the Zhengshitang, they are different from the Xingtai in the early days of the country. It is permanent, so it is not to transfer people from Zhongshumen to the local government for short-term temporary command of military and political affairs, but to manage it permanently for a long time, with high-ranking officials stationed there for a long time, and will have command over the four divisions of the original Dao.”

"For remote places such as Xichang and Sanjiang, if such a provincial yamen is set up on the fourth division of Dao, and a chief official is in charge of a department, it will indeed help improve the efficiency of the current localities. In this respect, we can learn from the frontier It can be seen from the changes after the Metropolitan Governor's Mansion was changed to the Jiedu Fanzhen."

The emperor heard the meaning in the words, "Tell me about the shortcomings."

"Everyone, this province sounds like an agency dispatched by the central government, but in fact it is a higher-level local agency." Liu Yizhi said bluntly.

Li Hao savored the meaning carefully.

Central dispatched agencies and local high-level institutions undoubtedly focus on the two terms central and local.

"continue!"

"Compared to Dao, this province's jurisdiction has not changed, but its power has greatly increased. It used to be divided into four divisions, not under each other and supervised by each other, but now there is one official in charge, with great power and high status."

From the Qin and Han Dynasties to the Sui and Tang Dynasties, why has it always been a three-tier system such as the central government, local counties, or the central government, prefectures and counties?

Although the Han Dynasty set up a state in the county, this state was a supervisory state, not an actual first-level administrative division.Later, during the Southern and Northern Dynasties, prefectures and counties were set up indiscriminately. At this time, the relationship between the prefectures and counties was very chaotic, with both parallelism and affiliation.

After the Sui Dynasty unified the country, there were more than 300 prefectures, 500 counties, and 1000 counties in the country. It was very chaotic. Therefore, in the end, Yang Jian dismissed the counties across the country and merged more than 300 prefectures into more than 190. Counties were abolished to more than a thousand points, and a system of central government, prefectures and counties was implemented.

The prefectures at this time were different from the prefectures in the Han Dynasty. The prefectures at this time were actually counties in essence, but they just changed their names, and they were still secondary administrative divisions.

After Yang Guang succeeded to the throne, he abolished the state and set up counties, but in essence it was still a secondary system.

The temporary platform set up later did not change this basic system, and the same was true in the Tang Dynasty.

After Zhenguan, not only set up roads in the state, but also divided the whole country into ten roads, and then analyzed and increased them to become more than ten, twenty, and now more than 30 roads.

After that, the fourth division at the Dao level was formally established, and this was considered to be the official establishment of the three-level local administrative division of Daozhou County.

However, the Dao level has always been incomplete. The reason is that the Dao has a large area. If a chief is set up to command the military, government, finance, taxation and justice of the Dao, then the power will be too great.

For example, Guanzhong Road and Henan Road, even if Gyeonggi and Duji are divided from them, they are still large in size. A state in the heart of the Central Plains often has a larger population than a border province. It is very dangerous to divide the core Central Plains region into Guanzhong, Henan, Hebei, Hedong, and Huainan.

The power game between the central government and the local governments has never stopped for thousands of years, but the central government has always insisted on refusing to delegate power. It would rather directly govern three or four hundred states than add another level of permanent divisions. It is because of the struggle for power that they are afraid of being ostracized by the local government.

For example, before Zhenguan, local taxes had to be turned over to the national treasury first, and then the central government allocated some to the localities. After the Zhenguan New Deal, it was changed to local taxes. Let local governments have money in their hands, and they can plan their own development, instead of waiting for the approval of the court and drawing money.

In administration, finance, military affairs, judiciary, supervision, etc., the imperial court strictly controlled the power, but in the society before the Tang Dynasty, the efficiency of handling affairs and the decentralization of power would indeed override the central government.

Li Hao's complexion became more and more ugly when he heard this.

"Does the Prince of Wu'an want to elevate the central government?"

Liu Yizhi hurriedly said, "I don't think so. After all, Qin Xianggong proposed to set up provinces not in the core areas of the Central Plains, but in remote and backward areas, such as the southwest, Lingnan, and northwest areas. Those places are already remote and backward. The center is also far away, information communication is inconvenient, and the situation is complicated, so it needs to be more centralized."

Fan Lubing said on the side, "I'm afraid that provinces will be set up in remote areas first. After setting this precedent, they will gradually be added to the interior of the Central Plains. By then, Jiangxi will be included this year, Shannan will be included next year, and the year after that will be included. To bring Guangdong into..."

Another also said, "When the Jiedushi was established, there were only ten towns, but now there are thirteen towns."

"However, after the abolition of the Dudu Mansion system in the Mainland, the remote areas are indeed not as tightly controlled as before. In recent years, the barbarians in the border areas have repeatedly caused chaos. Not belonging to each other, leading to problems. Before, even the city of Jiaozhou was attacked by the rebel barbarians, how much damage was caused?"

There have also been repeated rebellions in the South Central region, not to mention the previous major rebellion on the Qingchang-Tibet Plateau.

However, in the frontier areas where Jiedushi was established, the situation is much better.

Qin Xiaozhong did not propose to add Jiedushi in the Mainland, but to change the establishment of provinces, which is also a compromise.

But what the emperor thought was that after the establishment of this province, these remote places would lose control more and more in the future, which annoyed the emperor.

He was worried that a group of heroes like the Qin family would occupy the positions of those high-ranking officials and gain more control over the local area.

Since Li Hao succeeded to the throne, he has always wanted to make a difference, but now he finds that his hands are tied and it is difficult for him to do anything.

Just like the current provincial system, it doesn't seem to work if it is not implemented. If we continue to adopt the current situation of dividing the four divisions at the provincial level in Xichang and other places, I am afraid that there will be more and more rebellions in the future.

But the imperial court can no longer set up Jiedushi, after all, this is not the most frontier place.

Liu Yizhi saw that the emperor's complexion was very bad, and at this time he made a suggestion, "I thought that the provincial system could be tried out in a small number of frontier areas first, and when the experience matures in the future, it will be gradually promoted and increased, and even... "

He smiled slightly and made a killer move.

That is, in the future, instead of changing to the inland provinces, the Jiedu Fanzhen will be changed to provinces.

The most critical part of Jiedu Fanzhen is its borders and large number of soldiers. If it is changed into a province in the future, it can appropriately reduce the number of soldiers and horses, and even change it to civilian officials serving as high-ranking officials, with military officers serving as deputy, reducing the military force of the feudal town.

The central core area still implements the old system, and even after the border provinces are developed and become prosperous, they can still stop the provincial yamen, and the four divisions will still be in charge, directly managed by the imperial court.

He even came up with an even more powerful one.

"Multiple members in one department combined with the restraint of the chief!"

"what for?"

"Everyone, since it's called a province, it was originally taken from the meaning of Zhongshumen's province, and the decision-making organization under Zhongshumen is a collective decision-making and centralized leadership."

The prime ministers of the Zhengshitang are themselves senior officials of the three provinces and six ministries. They entered the Zhengshitang as prime ministers with the title of Tong Zhongshumen's third rank, and they made decisions and discussed major issues together, and then the general leader of the ruling Shibi.

Then Qin Xiaozhong proposed to set up provinces, yes, but it is not a unitary system of governors like prefectures and counties.

Instead, the province will be able to set up a chief such as the governor, and then have a deputy second, and the chief of the fourth department below, just like the Zhengshitang, these six or seven people will be awarded a title, and then become a province decision-making level.

In this way, even if you are a high-ranking official or governor, you don't have the final say on everything, and the deputy chief or the fourth envoy are not entirely his subordinates. As long as you have a title and enter the provincial capital, they are all equal. As high-ranking officials, the important affairs of the province must be discussed together, and finally the seal of the provincial capital must be affixed to be effective.

There is a political affairs hall under the Zhongshumen of the imperial court, and there are capital halls in the local provinces.There are three provinces and six ministries under the Zhengshitang, and there are four divisions and states under the provinces.

In this way, it not only strengthened the power of local management at the Dao level, but also prevented the power of high-ranking officials from being too powerful, and even local power fell into the hands of the heroic group that the emperor worried about.

Li Hao cast admiring glances at Liu Yizhi.

As expected of the person his father once favored, this ability is really good, although the grade is not high, but he has the talent of a prime minister.

The emperor intends to reuse Liu Yizhi.

Liu Yizhi was very talented when he was young. He was once as famous as Gao Zhizhou, the prime minister of Zhongzong Dynasty. At that time, he was famous for his literary works with Meng Lizhen, Gao Zhizhou and Guo Zhengyi. , Guo four great talents.

His father was also a great talent. His father, Liu Ziyi, was the secretary and supervisor of the Sui Dynasty. After the death of the Sui Dynasty, he refused to serve in the Tang Dynasty. He was promoted to be a Bachelor of Hongwenguan and a writer, and participated in the compilation of Jin Shu.

Liu Yizhi's elder brother, Liu Yizhi, is also very talented and famous, and now he is an official.

Even Liu Yizhi's sister is very talented and famous, she is a talented woman.

Li Hao looked at Liu Yizhi and suddenly had an idea in his heart, planning to take Liu Yizhi's younger sister into the palace, so that Liu Yizhi's brother would be more loyal to the emperor.

Although doing this is because the emperor hates relying on relatives, but it seems that the only way to deal with the most powerful relatives in the world is to use new relatives.

The young emperor did not dare to say that he would deal with the Qin family, but he also hoped to restore the authority of the emperor.

"Go back and write a proposal for setting up a province for my reference."

The emperor had already made a decision in his heart at this time, agreeing to Qin Xiaozhong's provincial system, but first chose Xichang Road, Yanbei Road, Fujian Road, and Guangxi Road for trial implementation. Specifically, the court had to continue to discuss a feasible plan system before start.

(End of this chapter)