At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty

What they did at the beginning is still repeated in this land, playing repeatedly, like a tape that can never be played, repeating the same tune forever.

The prime ministers and county magistrates of the past changed their identities and bodies, and they are still repeating the events of the past in some unknown place.

Intrigue, fight for power and profit, full of ugliness.

It's all so similar.

At that moment, at this moment.

Guo Chengzhi didn't understand, Zhuge Liang explained it to him and let him understand, but even if he understood, he didn't know how to change it.

So Guo Chengzhi looked at Guo Peng.

"Father, is this kind of thing normal?"

"For bureaucrats, it's normal, but for you, it's unforgivable."

Guo Peng took a deep breath and said, "They use all the people of the world as bargaining chips to fight for power and profit, and they are damaging your foundation. Although they seem to have done nothing and made no mistakes, will they really not cause losses if they do so? ?”

Zhuge Liang glanced at Guo Chengzhi in surprise, then immediately lowered his head.

Guo Chengzhi didn't notice Zhuge Liang's gaze.

"However, as Lord Zhuge said, they just don't act. On the surface, as long as the scope of responsibility is not within their scope, they have no responsibility."

Guo Chengzhi was very distressed, and asked: "Father, can you make some restrictions on the law? Chengzhi heard that there were regulations in the Qin law in the pre-Qin period, and it is a felony to refuse to save within a hundred steps, and it must be severely punished.

Even if the people of Qin know that it is a crime to see death and do nothing, how can I, Wei, turn a blind eye to it?Why not set up a law to warn officials that knowing it and not doing it is a felony, and they should sit together! "

Guo Chengzhi hates this kind of mutual harm between officials.

Chapter 1536 One thousand four hundred and fifty six Guo Chengzhi's ideas are destined not to be realized

Guo Chengzhi's idea is very simple, since it is wrong, it must be changed.

He has never considered how big a project it is to make some changes in the political system, and how much involvement it will cause.

And how much money was spent on it.

"It's just one thing to do nothing. It's specific and aboveboard. It's easy to stipulate, restrict, and implement under the watchful eyes of everyone."

Guo Peng looked at Zhuge Liang, then at Guo Chengzhi, and spoke slowly.

"However, matters between officials are not open to the eyes of the public, let alone specific, and involve a lot. Once the regulations are stipulated, it will definitely arouse fear and anxiety on a large scale among officials. They will resist and try to avoid it.

This will also intensify the conflicts among colleagues, endless wrangling, shirk responsibility, and mutual accusations will only bring counterproductive results. More importantly, doing so will greatly increase the court's ability to spend money and energy expenditure. "

Zhuge Liang lowered his head and remained silent, obviously deeply touched by this.

Can such a thing be expected to be corrected by local officials themselves?

It is more likely that officials will protect each other.

At that time, the imperial court will have to send people to solve it, which will greatly increase the administrative cost, and the imperial court will be overwhelmed.

After all, this is not an era when you can understand the local situation with an email or a phone call. You have to send people to see everything, send people to ask for carriages, time, and travel expenses. These are all expenses.

Adding some laws and regulations rashly looks simple, but it is just black and white, but in fact it is full of money.

Without healthy finances, centralization cannot be afforded.

At present, the finances of the Wei Empire are still abundant and healthy.

Guo Peng has a strong grasp of taxation, and continues to increase revenue. The national treasury is abundant and the internal treasury is full. It seems to be very prosperous, but who knows what problems will arise in the future?

Administrative costs must be suppressed and controlled, otherwise such a large country will sooner or later drag down the court's finances.

The strong centralization of the Guowei Empire has already made the administrative costs of the empire very high, and if it continues to increase, it will be very dangerous.

When Guo Peng examined the imperial financial expenditure before Yande's abdication in 13 years, he found that the official expenses for officials' salaries and official business trips had become the bulk of the imperial financial expenditure.

Go straight to military spending.

This is the price that has to be paid in the case of centralization and implementation.

During this period, I don't know how many cases of misuse of public funds, so Guo Peng left it to Guo Jin to strengthen the taxation department, build the taxation department into a strong department, and pay close attention to taxation.

Otherwise, this level of centralization will not be maintained for several generations, at most three generations, and the government's finances will be overwhelmed, and centralization will decline.

In order to encroach on local power and carry out the will of the central government, the number of central officials must be guaranteed.

It is necessary to ensure that the number of people is sufficient, so that they can be sent to the local area at any time to handle affairs, supervise the local area, and suppress the local area.

The number of central officials in the Wei Empire far exceeded that of the Qin and Han Dynasties, and the scale of the officials was even larger, far exceeding the sum of the first Han and the later Han.

The basis of all this is the astronomical salary and welfare expenditures of the imperial court.

When starting a business in the early days, due to the small number of officials, Guo Peng was able to give the officials relatively good treatment, some benefits and so on.

However, when the number of officials in the Guowei regime increased and the number of people eating imperial food continued to expand, Guo Peng found that he was a little financially unable to do what he wanted.

This is not to say that the situation of wasting public funds is serious, but that there are so many objectively existing people, even if they are completely clean, they will not waste any public funds, and it will not be easy.

So during the four or five years of Yande, he followed the trend of centralization, slightly increased the welfare of central officials, and then reduced the welfare of local officials.

He reduced the benefits of most officials at the state and county levels.

Adopt the method of not moving the upper class or the lower class, and specifically catching the middle class to the death, and reducing the salary expenditure of officials, especially the salaries and benefits of state-level officials.

This makes sense.

The central officials were the basis for the centralization of power in the Wei Empire. Cutting their benefits would have a wide range of attacks, and they would easily threaten and impact the central court directly. Their protests would bring more direct pressure, so they should not be moved lightly.

Local grassroots, small officials at the county and village levels, they are the staff who are directly responsible for handling affairs, and are directly responsible for the implementation of the will of the central government.

Cutting their benefits will also affect their enthusiasm for work, thereby reducing the efficiency of local administration and easily causing corruption on a larger scale.

The middle-level bureaucrats, county-level and state-level officials, have a large number of them and their benefits are good, but because they are encroached on by the central department, they do not do much.

For some people who have no ambitions and just want to eat and wait to die, it's not too good.

But for the empire's finances, is it interesting to spend so much money to support an idler?

Cutting their benefits has relatively minimal impact on the administrative situation of the empire and will not affect the overall administrative situation.

It is also easy to make them find that eating and waiting to die is not a long-term solution, stimulating them and letting them know that they cannot be salted fish and must go up, thereby stimulating the flow of this level of class, so that this level can never be stabilized.

And their protests and opposition posed the least threat and pressure to the empire.

Because I usually don't take much responsibility, when I protest, I feel relatively weak and easy to bully.

Therefore, Guo Peng secretly cut the benefits of most of the officials at the state and county levels who were robbed of their powers. Only a few special groups such as the police group were not cut, which really saved the empire a lot of money.

Of course they were dissatisfied, but they had no choice but to go one way—sharp their heads to express themselves, and squeeze toward the center.

Generally speaking, the financial expenditure of an empire has three major purposes - raising soldiers to maintain stability, raising officials and administration, and raising the royal family.

Among them, only the cost of raising an official can be a little sloppy, and the other two items must not be moved.

If you want to maintain high pressure on officials, you will have to pay huge administrative costs and increase the cost of maintaining officials in a disguised form. For an empire, this cost is very heavy and not very necessary.

At the moment of building water conservancy and road projects, and at the moment of promoting economic development and local construction, the financial expenditure of the Wei Empire is close to saturation, and any slight change must be carefully judged and calculated.

Not to mention that Guo Jin will send several of her younger brothers overseas, and will continue to give them blood transfusions for several years to help them gain a firm foothold and establish a foundation.

Once such an official evaluation plan is implemented, it will inevitably increase administrative costs indefinitely, and the national treasury will be overwhelmed all at once.

Completion of this matter seems to be very good, but in fact it will overwhelm the empire's finances, and this situation cannot be maintained for too long, even with the import of silver and gold from Japan.

Empire can't do it.

Therefore, Guo Chengzhi's idea is destined not to be realized.

It is difficult to be a family, but it is even more difficult to be a family. Guo Chengzhi does not understand now, but when he becomes an emperor in the future, he will understand the pain of being in short supply. Regardless of the fact that the emperor is rich in the world, if he really wants to do things, no money is enough.

So Guo Peng patted him on the shoulder.

"Now you will think that doing one thing is very simple, and you can only see good results. When you look at it in the future, you will find that there are all problems here. Chengzhi, governing the country is not that simple. You have to Learn more."

Guo Chengzhi was a little disappointed.

He failed to solve the problem, failed to share Guo Peng's worries, which made him feel that his studies were still not in place.

But he didn't know that some things couldn't be solved no matter how much he studied.

Mature politicians, such as Guo and Zhuge Liang, are well aware that this kind of matter is difficult to solve, and it is a different matter whether to solve it or not.

Zhuge Liang understood very well the difficulty of solving this kind of problem. He said this to express to Guo Peng that he had fully grasped the fundamentals of governing.

He is a mature politician.

He is no longer immature.

Guo Peng was very happy. Although he couldn't solve the bureaucrats, he got a mature Zhuge Liang who would bring extremely important help to the Wei Empire.

"Kong Ming, you have grown up."

"It all depends on the trust and expectation of the Supreme Emperor."

"This is due to your own excellence. It has nothing to do with me. I never imagined that you could grow to this level. So, do you have any unfinished business in the Beiting Protectorate's Mansion?" Confession?"

Zhuge Liang's heart began to beat faster.

"There are still some things that have not been completed and need to be explained."

"Okay, I will send someone back to pass the news to the emperor, and then arrange a successor for you. You will hand over the position with him, and then you can go back to Luoyang. The emperor needs your presence. Kong Ming, don't forget my respect your expectations."

Guo Peng walked up to Zhuge Liang and patted him on the shoulder.

Zhuge Liang was stunned for a moment, then rectified his appearance, straightened his clothes, and paid respects to Guo Peng very seriously.

"I, Zhuge Liang, never dare to forget."

When other people said this, it might be a scene, and most of them were perfunctory.

Zhuge Liang said this because he really wanted to say it, and since he said it, he would really do it.

So Guo Peng smiled and patted Zhuge Liang on the shoulder.

"There are so many departments in the imperial court, which department do you think you are most suitable for?"

"This……"

Zhuge Liang felt that Guo Peng had treated him too favorably. Could it be possible to make choices based on his thoughts?

"The Supreme Emperor, I think that if there is a vacancy, I will go there. I have heard about the shortage of positions in the central government office, and I dare not bother the Supreme Emperor to make an exception for my minister."

Zhuge Liang is very modest and cautious.

Chapter 1537 One thousand four hundred and fifty seven precious treasures that the Wei Empire desperately needed

Guo Peng was naturally happy that Zhuge Liang was so modest and cautious.

But the situation is not that simple.

For special talents, the court naturally has special treatment.

"This is the case for ordinary officials. Officials with more than [-] shi are transferred to Luoyang, and there will still be some special treatment and arrangements. Those who have made outstanding achievements will also have preferential treatment. Those who actively ask to go to the desolate frontier to become an official will be given priority. promoted."

"Can you do that?"

Zhuge Liang was a little surprised.

"Of course, everyone in the world knows that Luoyang is good, so they all go to Luoyang. Don't you need officials in the bitter cold border? Everyone likes the prosperous place and hates the bitter cold place. Of course, the court must treat them differently.

Officials like you who are willing to go to the bitter cold area to govern the local area and make political achievements are the first line of priority for promotion, and there are important positions with good remuneration. They are closely selected by you, and then it will be the turn of others. "

"The minister has never heard of it..."

"Well, I plan to tell the emperor right away, and then ask the emperor to announce this rule to the public. This rule has always existed, but it has not been officially announced to the public, so some people don't know it. It's not their fault."

Guo Peng smiled slightly.

Zhuge Liang's heart was suddenly filled with strange emotions.

This is real?