imprinted you in my heart

At the beginning of the tenth year of Tianfu, under the circumstance that many provincial and local officials have reported many pressures and affairs in recent years, Shi Min had to pay attention to this issue. When she first received a few similar memorials, she also thought about it. , and discussed it privately with Bu Qianxue and important ministers many times.

She also had an idea that the local officials were too incompetent, and they were tired and complained about such a small matter, but she didn't expect that it would become a common problem now.

Problems should be solved rather than accumulated, so that this kind of problem can be officially put on the agenda this year. After nearly two months of intensive discussions, field inspections and learning from others, Shi Nian finally decided to properly reform the local government system by adding local administrative levels. to solve this problem.

Since the reform of the New Deal, the government orders have been heavy and heavy, and the affairs have been numerous and complicated, and one after another, the pressure on local officials, especially provincial officials, is indeed relatively high, because a county can only manage [-] townships at most , but a province must manage at least [-] counties.

It’s no wonder that most provincial officials such as provincial chiefs and provincial officials are deeply exhausted physically and mentally. Some even hope to retire early and return to their hometowns.

Among them, Fang Hehe Fengyou, who wrote the most letters and most earnest words, did not change his original intention of making great achievements and fame. Fang He did have some ability, but it was not enough to deal with the governance of a province under the reform situation. As for the progress, Shi Min agreed to his request after careful consideration, and sent him a very capable provincial prime minister.

As for Fengyou, she originally thought that going to the local area would be an easy job with real power, especially for supervisory officials, but in fact it backfired, not at all what she thought.

It was only after I went to the place that I found out that the inspector Shi of Huayou District indeed has real power and high status, but there are also many things. They not only have to supervise the tasks assigned by His Majesty, but also supervise all civil and military officials in the entire Huayou District. Whether there is corruption, bribery, dereliction of duty, etc.

Although officials themselves are also obliged to monitor their colleagues, but people are sympathetic, especially if they have a good relationship, they will basically turn a blind eye to it, so it can only be used as a supplementary method, and their supervision is mainly tested.

It's okay to have too many things, if there are enough people under her hands, she can be busy, but in fact, there is a shortage of manpower. When the staff is full, it can only be just enough, let alone not full, so she has written a lot of letters.

Shi Min was annoyed to death by her, the other inspectors were fine, but she had a lot of things to do in one day, so they didn't want to talk to her, but he was so annoyed by her that he couldn't do anything about it, so in the end he arranged all the people for her, and went to the From assistant officials to subordinate officials, she was fully staffed, and the matter was considered over.

Feng You didn't want it to end here, she still wanted more people to help with the work, but Shi Min also had her own difficulties, and all her secret letters and memos were kept in the middle.

In addition to personal ability, the gap between the rich and the poor must also be taken into account. Rich places have a lot of people and a lot of troubles, and remote places are sparsely populated and naturally have few things. Therefore, except for Xiagu Province, other provincial capitals that are really necessary, as long as When they wrote the letter, Shi Min would also send one or two more capable officials. At first, the effect was very satisfactory, but as time went by and the number of affairs continued to increase, the effect began to decline slowly, or after maintaining a constant speed, the I don't think it's too soon.

In order to motivate and appease the enthusiasm and emotions of local provincial senior officials, Shi Min gave appropriate rewards to provincial senior officials with outstanding achievements according to the assessment results of the past three years as a token of appreciation.

In this way, things can be pushed forward, but those who have not been rewarded have some thoughts in their hearts. Although they are not as beautiful as those people in their work, they are still exhausted and hard-working, so there are more memorials for crying up.

With more and more memorials of the same kind, Shi Min had to attach great importance to it. If only one or two places have this problem, it can be said to be a minority, but if this problem exists in most places, it is a universal problem. It must be resolved, otherwise it will become a hidden danger sooner or later.

After many considerations, Shi Min decided to add two levels of administrative units, prefecture and town. Tongzhi (the fifth rank), Zhou Wei (the deputy fifth rank), Xuedao (the sixth rank) and so on.

The town is the lowest administrative level unit, below the county and above the village, generally 8-14 villages are a town, completely breaking the fixed tradition of imperial power not going to the countryside in the past dynasties.

Originally, towns and villages were the bottom-level self-governing institutions of feudal society, that is, the chiefs took turns. The village elders and three elders in the village were elected by the people with high morals. Zheng, service Zheng and Jiaozheng), whose duties are to assist the county magistrate in collecting taxes and counting the population of acres, resolving conflicts and disputes, preventing theft, fire prevention, and issuing certificates for handling documents in the county, etc.

Moreover, in the past dynasties, no matter whether they were town elders, sanzhengs, or village chiefs, etc., they had no salary, and their ranks were also low-level. However, there are still a lot of people vying to be the ones, just because the gray income is very considerable. Those who bully the superiors and the inferiors act as overlords.

In fact, at the beginning of each dynasty, the management of towns and villages was not bad. After all, they were really elected by the people, so they would also consider the people. One clan is one village, and basically one person is both the patriarch and the village elder, almost becoming a family, one clan, one surname, and it is the kind that is clearly hereditary, so the election becomes a written implementation. .

Many villages were like this when Shi Min first became a Dabao. After several years of strict investigation and suppression of the New Deal reform, although some improvements have been made, the symptoms are not cured. Can be resurrected quickly.

Now that I happen to have the idea and plan to add a state level, I simply added the town level by referring to the administrative level of the previous life, but the staffing must not be too much, otherwise the economic pressure will be great, and it will be easy to do bad things with good intentions.

After the addition of a township (township) first-level administrative level, the township (township) elder was changed to the mayor, that is, the head of a town (zhengjiupin), who was appointed by the imperial court, with one Fuzheng, one official and one Jiaozheng (subordinate staff 12 levels) ), a new town-level office—the town office (three rooms), with the same powers and responsibilities as before.

Usually, all affairs in a town are handled by 4 people including the mayor, assisted by the village head and the head of the village, but they have no judicial power such as trial, and can only assist the county; in busy times or special periods, you can apply to the higher county magistrate according to the procedure Support and apply for expropriation of some people.

The village elder was also changed to the village head, and the village head and the three elders (Fu Lao, Service Lao and Wen Lao) let the people in the village choose people with high morals, but the four of them changed from enjoying nothing but fame to enjoying free 4 The land tax per mu can only be enjoyed after serving for one year, and it can be enjoyed for one year after death or resignation as a show of compensation, and it will not be enjoyed thereafter.

The head of the village is appointed by the head of the household in turn in order, once a year, and the head of the village can enjoy 5 mu of land tax exemption for that year.

The reason why this amount of land tax exemption was determined was not based on the imagination of Shi Min and the ministers, but based on the results of many investigations and many considerations. It was also based on a well-known folk song in the Hua Dynasty, "Ten mu of land, one head of land , the family has food and clothing and hope.”

With the establishment of state-level administrative levels, appropriate adjustments had to be made to imperial examinations and schooling. Old and unchanged.

However, the prefectural school originally located in the provincial capital was changed to be located in the state capital, and the original prefectural school site was changed to other necessary purposes, such as warehouses, government offices, etc. If it is next to the university department, it will be directly merged with the university department. The government is responsible for five levels of construction funds for the prefectural government, the provincial level is responsible for three levels, and the state level is responsible for two levels.

The capital for the construction of the township office is the responsibility of the five floors by the imperial court, and the five floors by the county level.The prefectural school must be completed and the transfer of students completed within two years at the latest; the state government office must be completed and put into use within one and a half years; the town office must be completed and put into use within one year, and the time limit is calculated from the day the local government office receives the official document.

After the decree of the relevant documents was issued, Shi Min also specially issued a decree to the Procuratorate, asking them to focus on supervising the construction of state government offices, township offices, and prefectural schools and the use of related funds in the next two years. .

Before the addition of state-level administrative levels, a province had to manage at least about [-] counties. If it was done according to the previous leisure work progress, it would be fine, but since the administrative reform, things have been one after another, and the tasks have become more and more complicated. Again, there are still the supervisors of the Ninth District Inspector's Office watching over them, so it's no wonder that they have complained repeatedly in the past two years.

Therefore, as soon as the decree of the new state-level administrative level came out, it received strong support from the entire bureaucratic system, especially the local officials, because it not only reduced the work of the provincial management, but also gave a large number of local middle- and low-level officials and even the court. Rank officials have provided a lot of opportunities for advancement, and everyone is really happy.

Even Shi Min was happy, because the addition of prefectures and towns complemented the system of local officials and increased the imperial court's control over the localities. More importantly, the talents she had recruited in recent years and the reserves of Jinshi and Juren Finally, there is a place for it to be used, and it can be used as a real job.

No matter what you want to do or what you want to do, talents are indispensable. In order to collect talents from all over the world, in addition to military generals who started in the army, civil and military officials who entered the imperial examination, and nobles, Shi Min's policy of recruiting talented people has also been on the rise. The implementation was not temporarily suspended until the reserve talent became seriously saturated last year.

Therefore, in recent years, the most indispensable thing in the entire Hua Dynasty is talents, and it is also an important reason why the New Deal reform can be effectively implemented, because you are not willing to do it, and some people are willing to do it.

In the ten years since he ascended the throne, due to the good weather and the support of Shi Min, the commodity economy has continued to develop, and the entire Hua Dynasty is also prosperous. However, the governance of corruption seems to have no end. Typically, there are also officials who have written a letter suggesting high salaries to support honesty.

It's a good idea to keep a low salary with a high salary, but what counts as a high salary?Taking the salaries of officials and subordinate staff as an example, the annual salary of the lowest 12-level subordinate staff is four or five times that of an ordinary family of five. Isn’t that high? !

Therefore, the memorials were kept by Shi Min, but taking advantage of the last wave of reforms, Shi Min decided to introduce a public silver system before the end of the year, similar to the modern year-end awards, based on various aspects of the year's assessment As a result, it was distributed as appropriate. The full amount of the first grade was 500 taels, and it was gradually reduced according to the grade.

At the end of the year, officials with particularly outstanding political achievements will be given other rewards and awards, but in order to avoid being overwhelmed, officials who hold false positions and those who have no real position do not enjoy the public silver.

According to the current assessment method, it is very difficult for officials to get the full amount of Fenggong Bank, but it is also very difficult to get no money. Anyway, the purpose is to do as much as possible and get more. On the contrary, the less it is, it can be regarded as an incentive benefit.

Bu Qianxue really wanted to attend the wedding of her good friend Tang Lu and Bu Xinming, because when she and Shi Min got married, Tang Lu traveled all the way to watch the ceremony, and because he was busy with business, he only had time to meet in a hurry.

But Shi Min said that she was not allowed to go, the reason was that she jumped out like she didn't want money, the road was too far, the weather was too cold, I would go crazy if I didn't see you for so many days, etc. Only she couldn't think of it, there was no Shi Min. I dare not say it.

Because of Shi Min's efforts to prevent her, she was unable to make the trip in the end, so she could only send an internal official to congratulate her with generous gifts, and also wrote a congratulatory letter, expressing both congratulations and apology.

With the invasion of the cold air, the weather is getting colder every day, but Shi Min is returning later every day. After the two of them finished their lunch yesterday, Shi Min went to the military foundry, and he still hasn’t come back yet. Bu Qianxue eats all the meals by herself, so fortunately she will take a rest today, otherwise she would have to find an excuse in the morning.

The two of them were used to having meals together, but Shi Min was suddenly absent, and Bu Qianxue still had a bit of a loss of appetite, so she only ate a little before putting down the bowls and chopsticks.

Seeing that the end of the year was approaching, the Empress Dowager Wen Yu saw that the two of them were not in any hurry to have a baby, and she seemed to be in a hurry, so she pretended to pray for the people, but in fact she went to the Xianliang Temple under the pretext of begging for a baby. It is estimated that he will not come back in ten days or so.

So from yesterday afternoon to now, she is the only master in the entire huge palace, playing music, Shi Min is not there, I am not interested, playing mahjong, the Queen Mother is not here, I am not interested, I found two books that I usually like to read, but I can’t read them because I am irritable. go in.

Where did Shi Min sleep last night?Why haven't you come back yet?All he could think about were the answers to these two questions, and he couldn't calm down at all. He wanted to find someone to call Shi Min back, but he couldn't find it.

No matter what next time, she will go with her anyway, and it's good to know the door and the way, otherwise she won't have to wait here today, and go directly to the armory.

It's not that Shi Min didn't tell her, or didn't let her go, but Shi Min only went for half a day at most, and she didn't bother to follow. After all, she wasn't interested in weapons and the like, so she might as well be in the palace. Do something you enjoy. ?