Daming: Brother, there is no future for monks, let's rebel

Chapter 203 Ming's War Bond

As long as there are no major changes, the government's major policies every five years will be strictly implemented according to the established plan.

This set is a modern governance concept, which is simply a huge improvement for the society ruled by man in the feudal dynasty.

In the five years since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, although the war has not stopped, the first five-year plan of the Ming Dynasty has never been slack.

The main purpose of the first five-year plan is to stabilize the country, stabilize the people, and recuperate.

"A total of 560 people are suffering from the total statistics of all the state capitals in the world!"

"Da Ming has a total of 120 officers and soldiers!"

"Tribute to Fan Kingdom and Jimi Land 110 six!"

……

In the eyes of everyone, Zhu Han picked up a memorial in his hand, and then re-read the data on it.

Zhu Han read the numbers calculated by Li Shanchang, Liu Bowen and others, and his elder brother Zhu Yuanzhang showed undisguised pride on his face.

Because the expulsion of the Mongols and various forces was fast and stable, the population loss of the entire world was not as large as in history.

After several years of recuperation, the population of Daming Rujing has reached more than 5000 million.

And this population does not include the southwestern region occupied by Chen Youliang.

Daming, with a population of 6000 to [-] million, can be said to have unlimited potential.

"The affairs of tens of millions of people, the food, clothing, housing and transportation of millions of troops, so many things, if we have to deal with them personally, even if we are exhausted, we will definitely not be able to handle them properly."

Today's cabinet meeting, the basic tone is the affirmation of the first five years, and then the arrangement of the plan for the next five years.

Just now everyone discussed for a while, and basically all the national policies have been formulated.

Now Zhu Han suddenly raised such a sentence, which made everyone feel puzzled.

"Qiwu, tell me, what's your idea?" the older brother Zhu Yuanzhang asked with a smile.

He likes to hear Zhu Han put forward different ideas, because whenever Zhu Han puts forward his own ideas, it will definitely make Daming's national strength a bit stronger.

Although sometimes Zhu Han's ideas sound unbelievable at first, the after-effects always prove Zhu Han's correctness.

"The national policies mentioned by Li, Liu and others just now are very good, but there is one thing that has not been considered!" Zhu Han said slowly.

"I don't know what Lao Li didn't consider?"

"Will your Royal Highness please show me?"

Li Shanchang and Liu Bowen immediately asked Zhu Han respectfully like elementary school students.

"Qiwu, tell me quickly, where are you?" the elder brother Zhu Yuanzhang also asked immediately.

A dozen or so people discussed it for several hours just now, and it can be said that there are almost no flaws in the national policy formulated.

Zhu Han shook his head slightly, "The formulation of this national policy is really good, it can be said that it is detailed, and each county magistrate only needs to implement it according to the official documents of the imperial court!"

The national policy formulated by the Emperor of Ming Dynasty and the cabinet naturally cannot be implemented in detail for every official, and it is already very detailed if it can reach the limit level.

"The more detailed the rules are, the better the better?" Zhu Yuanzhang, the elder brother, was a little puzzled.

"It's good, but there's too much work to do. This is just a county magistrate's year-round task, which is enough to keep a Qipin county magistrate busy. When it is implemented, these restrictions must be To distribute the tasks to the officials below, these people must have more and more complicated tasks, and naturally they will work harder and more tiring!" Zhu Han said slowly.

"Officials' salaries, people's fat and people's anointment, taking the imperial court's salary, of course they have to do more work, let them have a leisurely meal, that is sorry to the people of the world!" Zhu Yuanzhang said seriously.

Zhu Han was not surprised by this statement.

In history, Zhu Yuanzhang was famous for being harsh and stingy to officials. Many officials in the early Ming Dynasty did not dare to take bribes and relied on the imperial salary. His family donated food and money so that he could maintain his life when he was an official in other places.

It is conceivable how low the salaries of officials in the early Ming Dynasty were.

But people's hearts have been selfish since ancient times. The imperial court wanted to use a small salary to make officials like cows and horses. None of those who could pass the imperial examination and become an official was a fool.

As the saying goes, there are policies above and countermeasures below.

All kinds of fancy filial piety were displayed one by one without waiting for the means of corruption.

Emperor Hongwu set a standard of incorruptibility for officials, and wanted them to be saints, but he did not expect that the Ming Dynasty would raise more corrupt officials.

So Zhu Han's strategy is basically to follow the path of high salary and honesty.

Although high salaries and honesty cannot make those greedy officials become honest officials, it can enable those officials who want to work hard in politics to stick to their principles and avoid corruption for the sake of food and clothing.

In the era of the British Empire in history, an empire on which the sun never sets was realized in terms of colonial rule, and the wages of officials of all sizes in the country were also unrivaled in the world, much higher than that of France, Prussia, Spain, Austria, Netherlands, etc.

"Just now you all said that how much silver was left over by the imperial court this year, how much silver was left over by the imperial court the year before, and how much silver was left over the year before last. There is more and more silver in the treasury."

"But the Ming Dynasty is a court, not a firm. Its purpose is to rule the world, and it's not to accumulate money. It's not that the more money you save, the better!"

"Thousands of silver are piled up in the national treasury. Sometimes you can buy urgently needed food and supplies, but some things are definitely not something you can buy immediately with money."

"For example, the administrative execution of the officials, big and small, is not something that can be achieved overnight. If they can't be given their best efforts from the beginning, when something goes wrong, it may not be effective to supervise and punish them!"

"Instead of doing this, it's better to take out some money from the court, increase the salaries of these officials, and recruit some more officials at the same time!"

Zhu Han's long speech made the elder brother Zhu Yuanzhang and Li Shanchang Liu Bowen and other court ministers fall into contemplation and surprise.

In fact, when the Ming Dynasty was founded, the salaries set for officials were not low. The annual salary of the county magistrate could reach 20 taels of silver, which is equivalent to about three to four million yuan.

However, in recent years, the economy of the Ming Dynasty has developed rapidly and prospered. Coupled with the inflow of a large amount of gold and silver from places such as Liaoyang, Japan, the prices of many things have increased significantly, and the silver that seemed to be relatively large has become commonplace.

Moreover, at the beginning of the founding of the Ming Dynasty, it also followed a measure in the official system of the feudal dynasties of the past dynasties, that is, there were a large number of subordinate officials in the large and small government offices!
Although these subordinate officials also represent the authority of the imperial court, they are not members who enjoy the official treatment. Gradually, they will become corrupt and pervert the law.

"Increase salary?"

"Recruitment officials?"

The elder brother Zhu Yuanzhang couldn't help thinking about these two suggestions made by Zhu Han.

There is no doubt that these two proposals have one of the most core problems, that is, they need to spend a lot of money to distribute salaries every year.

Zhu Yuanzhang's happiest thing now is to receive good news from the capitals of various military regions in the frontier, and the other is to tap the silver in the treasury of the Ming Dynasty.

Once the two suggestions of sweating are implemented, at least [-]% to [-]% of the gold and silver in the Ming treasury will be consumed.

"Seventh Five-Year, we agree to increase the salaries of officials, but it is a waste to recruit more officials. The officials currently used by the court are not enough. If you recruit more officials, wouldn't you give it to me?" A chance for many people to be lazy?" Zhu Yuanzhang said with some doubts.

Zhu Han was still calm, "The expansion of the recruitment of officials I am talking about is not simply recruiting new people, but to recruit many officials currently used by the imperial court to become official officials, and to evaluate, recruit, and recruit them like regular officials. Removal and reassignment!"

The problem Zhu Han mentioned was precisely the problem of grassroots officials in the Ming Dynasty that Liu Bowen, Li Shanchang and others did not think of.

The Ming and Qing dynasties in history were at the pinnacle of feudal rule.

But they have not made any progress in the management of grassroots officials.

The actual controllers of local power were not the low-level officials sent by the imperial court, but those officials who were not high-ranking or high-level officials.

Local officials are often passed down from generation to generation, and they do not need to have the same term of office and transfer restrictions as the imperial officials. In addition, they marry and worship each other, which creates iron-clad officials. official.

The corruption of power at the local grassroots level, the most rotten officials are these inconspicuous officials in the eyes of important court officials.

Zhu Han's plan is directly to bring these lowest-level officials directly into the unified assessment of the imperial court, so as to cut off the soil of hereditary and mutual collusion among the officials at the grassroots level.

After Zhu Han expressed his thoughts, the older brother Zhu Yuanzhang immediately clapped his hands excitedly.

"Qiwu, your suggestion is really great, it's in our hearts!"

While Zhu Yuanzhang was talking, he kept remembering in his heart the scene when the low-level officials in the Yuan Dynasty forced their parents to ruin their families when they were collecting taxes.

The common people always think that the high officials in the imperial court are all upright officials, and most of the local officials are hard-nosed and corrupt.

However, the court has not come up with a corresponding solution to solve this problem.

Now that the Ming Dynasty has sufficient financial revenue, it can use a large number of salaries to bring all officials, big and small, into the unified assessment of the court.

Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang of the Ming Dynasty made such affirmation of Zhu Han's proposal, so Li Shanchang, Liu Bowen, Zhu Sheng, Shi Naian and others naturally would not have any objections.

The second big plan started in the sixth year of Hongwu of the Ming Dynasty officially set the tone today.

The first is to continue to maintain the strategy of recuperation. Except for the construction of Yingtian Mansion and Beiping Mansion, all other large-scale projects of the imperial court are mainly focused on water conservancy and people's livelihood. Perfect water conservancy ditches.

This suggestion was made by Zhu Han after persuading his elder brother Zhu Yuanzhang.

Fengyang is not a place with good weather and weather, there will be droughts from time to time, and there will be floods every now and then.

It would be a big joke if there were a large number of disaster victims in the land of Longxing in the majestic Ming Dynasty.

Therefore, in Zhu Han's view, in Fengyang's hometown, the construction of water conservancy ditches is much more important than the construction of the Zhongdu Imperial Mausoleum.

The second national policy is to spread the teachings of the Ming Dynasty throughout the world. The new Confucianism formulated by Zhu Han is the only content of the imperial examination that is popular across the country.

This measure is equivalent to allowing Ming to have a modern official system equivalent to the development of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in later generations, and it can surpass any feudal dynasty in terms of organizational mobilization.

Finally, in the next five-year plan of the Ming Dynasty, Chen Youliang, who was entrenched in the southwest, was to be wiped out, and the territory of China should be completely unified.

As for other things such as continuing to expel the remnants of Mongolia, sailing to the West, and opening up wild places such as Liaoyang and Haidong, etc., these are not rigid national policies and can be acted upon.

Under the influence of Zhu Han, although the current Ming Dynasty is in a state of ruins, all walks of life are bursting with vitality.

Even after years of fighting, the livelihood of the people everywhere is getting better day by day.

Under such circumstances, the news that Ming Dynasty was about to regain southwest Sichuan, Yunnan and other places not only did not make the people feel panic and fear, but many people actively supported the imperial court's decision to eliminate Chen Youliang's entrenched forces.

Among them, merchants and factory owners in Jiangnan, Huguang and other places are the main force!

Because of these big businessmen and factory owners, many of them have absorbed the new technology developed by Zhu Han, and gradually have the tendency of capital sprouting.

And capital's thirst for the consumer market is endless.

Sichuan, Yunnan and other places are high-class places with beautiful mountains, rivers, good people and good people. If these places can be included in the territory of Ming Dynasty, the market for these big merchants will be further expanded, and they will be able to earn more money.

Zhu Han heard these things very quickly, and this association reminded me that the Ming treasury was being overwhelmed by him, so he immediately raised a new attention to his elder brother Zhu Yuanzhang.

Unexpectedly, after the elder brother Zhu Yuanzhang heard it, he jumped up immediately.

"How can this be?"

"Let the imperial court borrow money from the common people?"

"If this kind of thing is done, Daming's prestige will be lost!"

"Qiwu, we can agree to whatever you say, but this is not the only thing!"

Zhu Han and his elder brother Zhu Yuanzhang proposed to issue Daming Bonds, which are actually a kind of war bonds. Zhu Han even thought of a name for him, called Pingxi Bonds. The main purpose is to eliminate Chen Youliang who occupies the Southwest.

But the elder brother Zhu Yuanzhang obviously didn't want to issue this bond.

Because in his opinion, borrowing money from the common people, especially in the name of the court, is simply embarrassing and embarrassing.

"There are loans and repayments, and interest is also paid, what are you afraid of!?" Zhu Han looked relaxed.

"You said that there is a loan and a repayment, but the court is supreme. The people must want to lend the money to the court. If the court does not repay it, there is no way to do it, so they will definitely think that the court is taking this opportunity to collect money and seek the people's anointing!"

Obviously, Zhu Yuanzhang's objection to the issuance of bonds was not simply about losing face, but because he was afraid that the people would take the opportunity to lose trust in the court.

"Brother, I'm not only issuing bonds to give the imperial court some extra military expenses, but also to open up a new life-saving path for future generations!" Zhu Han said with a serious face.

Zhu Yuanzhang immediately widened his eyes when he heard this, and asked curiously.

(End of this chapter)