Song Gexing

Chapter 22 Three redundancies in the Song Dynasty
In fact, the reason why the prime ministers of the Renzong Dynasty were dismissed was not necessarily because they were incompetent, but because there were too many capable people, so much so that it formed an unspoken rule in the officialdom. No matter who was the prime minister, he would take the initiative to give up his position after five years.

Later, Fu Bi was impeached by the ministers because he refused to give up the throne for two more years. They said that he was obsessed with power and had bad morals. In the end, he had to resign. This was a miracle in the history of the dynasties.

This is probably why future generations of scholars miss the Song Dynasty infinitely, especially the Renzong Dynasty of the Northern Song Dynasty, which was dubbed the ultimate by future generations.

To put it bluntly, it’s just scholars who don’t want to be officials, but if those in front don’t give way, then those who come after will have no chance of ascending to the throne. And the Northern Song Dynasty was the first to take the initiative to give up the throne.

Those who refuse to give in will be criticized by the entire Shilin. In the words of the new era, it means that if you don't give in, you will be shameless. There are so many talents in the world, you think you are the only one who is the best, right?

As for someone being able to serve as prime minister several times, that's because you can come back to the top after a few years of retirement. In short, you have to step down and let a new person come up, and then it's normal for you to come up again.

This is actually somewhat similar to the electoral system of later generations, but the difference is that the new appointees in later generations will reorganize the government, but the Song Dynasty did not.

This will stabilize the government and prevent newcomers from changing policies too much and causing chaos.

It should be said that this system is actually better. It allows fresh blood to continuously enter the top management without causing weakness due to blood exchange.

It was only after Wang Anshi's political reform that all this began to change, and only then did Cai Jing take power for more than ten years.

Let's say that after Zhao Fang returned, he immediately summoned the men of the Imperial City Division to investigate the topics of most interest to the people at the moment, as well as their opinions on the imperial policies, etc.

In short, when the later reporter was looking for hot spots, he asked the Imperial City Department to do it first, and then went to the Ministry of Industry and handed over the task of making movable type to them.

He was very busy in the next few days, looking for a suitable place to open a workshop. He could go to Bianjing in person, but he couldn't go to the other three capitals.

Although the Imperial City Secretary can go out to do tasks, others can do it, but he can't. Not to mention Zhao Zhen doesn't allow it, even the court officials will never allow it.

"The newspaper is not the Dibao. In addition to the court announcements, it also has to contain some interesting stories. If you do this, you might as well publish the Dibao to the people. But who wants to read that?"

After half a month of busy work, the first draft was sent to Zhao Fang, which immediately gave him a headache.

Almost all of the scholars responsible for writing these books are just like this. They are full of important matters of the country, or they are just taught by saints, which is annoying to death.

"Come, look at this story I wrote. It's based on what really happened."

Fortunately, he was prepared. He had written several articles and adapted them from the news reported by the Imperial City Division, including the incident of Lu Zhailang.

Lu Zhailang, who was once again lying on the gun, could not find peace after returning, and was used as a negative example to write a story.

Of course it's not what Guan Hanqing wrote. After all, it didn't happen and it's hard to frame someone, but there is still something to dig into.

That guy had robbed Li Si's wife. The Xuzhou government office did not act in the face of reporting the crime, so Zhe Jizu chased her out of the city and captured her.

Writing this out can not only criticize the inaction of the officialdom, but also arouse the interest of the public. As for the plot of the story, it is naturally expanded a lot.

Scholars immediately understood what should be written in newspapers as soon as they read it. Don't underestimate the ancients. In fact, ancient scholars not only read the Four Books and Five Classics, they also loved to read folk stories and street life.

Although novels matured in the Ming Dynasty, they began to appear in the Tang Dynasty. The Song Dynasty was the cultural peak, and the literacy rate of the people was extremely high, so storybooks were also widely circulated.Zhao Fang now wants to write stories about official inaction, arouse the anger of the people against corrupt officials, and force the court to punish corrupt officials.

In the Song Dynasty, the so-called redundancy of personnel, soldiers, and expenses became more and more serious after officials failed to act. Just a simple household registration issue caused the court to lose at least one-third of its taxes every year.

The so-called weird household registration refers to the issue of hidden households and small families.

Hidden houses began in ancient times and were unavoidable in the prosperous ages of the Han and Tang Dynasties. It became even more serious in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms.

It was solved for a while at the beginning of the establishment of the Song Dynasty, but it was revived immediately. In fact, it was completely avoidable in the Song Dynasty, and it was caused by official corruption.

It is known that the Song Dynasty did not pay attention to land ownership, and the aristocratic families since the Qin, Han, Sui and Tang Dynasties basically no longer exist, so there is no need to live in seclusion.

No one is allowed to keep slaves, and wealthy families are prevented from hiding their household registration to cultivate land for themselves, but why are there still people who hide their household registration?

This has to do with the tax system of the Song Dynasty. The Song Dynasty implemented benevolent governance and stipulated that any family with only one child, or a family headed by a woman with children who were underage, did not pay taxes.

It is this policy that allows greedy people to see that there is an opportunity to exploit, and bribing local officials to hide their household registration has become a means of seeking profits.

Another so-called small family is actually the modern family model, a family of three.

China is a patriarchal society, and small families were not allowed originally. The Tang Dynasty stipulated that those who dared to separate their families while their grandparents and parents were still alive would be imprisoned for three years.

However, a policy of the Song Dynasty broke the phenomenon that people did not dare to separate families, that is, the Song Dynasty stipulated that families with less than three people were exempted from corvee service.

These three people are actually more than three, because the Song Dynasty also stipulated that those older than 60 years old and younger than 19 years old would not be recorded in the household registration.

Therefore, it was common for widows to remarry in the Song Dynasty, and there was even a phenomenon where children forced widowed mothers to remarry, because when you married, your family lost one household registration.

This invisibly contributed to the openness of folk customs in the Northern Song Dynasty, which was no less than that in the Tang Dynasty. The kind of women who were not allowed to see foreign men did not exist in the Song Dynasty.

However, this caused many families to deliberately reduce the number of family members in order to avoid corvee labor. It also caused the court to spend more money and food from corvee labor and hire corvee labor.

All this is a phenomenon caused by the collusion between the government and the people to conceal the truth from the court. At the same time, it also breeds a large number of corrupt officials.

This is the problem of redundancy. As for redundant staff and redundant soldiers, that is another problem. Redundant staff was caused by the bureaucracy of the Song Dynasty. If the reform would touch the interests of too many people, Zhao Fang would not take action on this matter now.

The redundant army was a helpless move of the Song Dynasty. In order to prevent the refugees from rebelling, the court recruited a large number of victims into the army every time there was a famine.

It is true that this method is extremely effective against refugee rebellions. Although there were rebellions among the people throughout the Song Dynasty, except for the troubled times in the late Northern Song Dynasty, they were rare in other times.

Even if there is one, it is limited to one place. There has never been a nationwide rebellion, such as the Yellow Turban Army in the late Han Dynasty, Huang Chao in the Tang Dynasty, and Li Zicheng in the Ming Dynasty. They did not exist in the Song Dynasty.

Even Fangla's rebellion was limited to Jiangnan and did not spread to the whole country.

(End of this chapter)