Rebirth of the Four Seas Emperor

Beginning of the new year

Ji Wenjun is still working hard in the public room.

Hou Yao crept up behind her, hoping to scare her when she raised her head.

As a result, after waiting for a quarter of an hour, I didn't find any intention of raising her head.

Immediately he couldn't help but said: "Aren't you tired of reading these documents all day long? Is there anything interesting?"

Ji Wenjun suddenly woke up: "Ah, when did you come?"

Hou Yao said angrily: "Everyone is waiting for you to have the reunion dinner. The day before yesterday, Miaomiao told me that he hasn't seen his mother in a month. If you keep working like this, I'm afraid my son won't recognize you. "

Ji Wenjun's expression darkened, and then he gritted his teeth: "The construction of the four provinces has just begun, and everything has to be sorted out. I am not you, and I don't have as much ability as you. I can only do it bit by bit."

Hou Yao shook his head: "You, do you know how Zhuge Liang died?"

Ji Wenjun looked confused.

Hou Yao sighed and said: "Zhuge Liang is exhausted. The four provinces are so big. Even if you exhaust yourself to death, you still can't do everything. To develop a place, you can just take advantage of the situation. It's not like you to do everything personally."

Ji Wenjun smiled bitterly: "If I don't have to do everything personally, I'm afraid those people will have eaten up the dregs of those new industries long ago. The Quanzhou cement plant that I asked the Fujian Chief Minister to invest in has started to appear after only three months of operation. After seeing the loss, Fuzhou sent three groups of people to review it. The final conclusion was that it was a normal operating loss and there was no problem. I had to ask Shen Yu to make a trip to find out. Zuo Shenzheng from the Fujian Chief Minister's Department, see The profits of the cement factory were too high, so they collaborated with the director of the cement factory to maliciously suffer losses, hoping to take the opportunity to force the cement factory to sell its shares, and then they took the opportunity to acquire them.

This kind of thing doesn’t happen all at once, it happens in many industries. Most of the people who dare to do this are local officials. They have huge influence in the local area. The chief envoy has nothing to do with them, so he can only turn a blind eye. Can I not keep an eye on it personally? ? "

Hou Yao couldn't laugh or cry immediately. He didn't expect that someone would play this trick now. Sure enough, no matter in that era, there were smart people.

However, such smart people were born in the wrong era. If they were in the previous life, they would have been able to live a happy life, but here, they are seeking death.

"Actually, this kind of thing cannot be prevented. There are two ways to solve this problem. The first is to privately own the enterprise. These enterprises are all under your personal name. If those people dare to take advantage of these industries, you can Kill them all for fair and just reasons. The second is to legislate and establish a strict review system, use laws to stipulate the ownership of enterprises, and prevent this kind of thing from happening from the legal level. The other is that the responsibility of the factory director is clear. If the enterprise suffers losses, the factory director will serve as the third party. A responsible person shall be held criminally responsible. Anyone with a deficit exceeding a certain amount shall be sentenced to death."

Ji Wenjun glanced at Hou Yao unexpectedly: "You are not always kind to others. Except for being cruel to the Xiyi people, I have rarely seen you use such harsh methods against the Daxia people. You didn't even kill Li Jingfeng." , why are you so cruel to these officials?"

Hou Yao said calmly: "The expenses of the country and the salaries of officials are all supported by the common people. They live without worries about food and clothing, and have a transcendent status. Officials should seek welfare for the people and do good to the people, but some people are still greedy and unsatisfied with their salaries. Wealth, and then try every means to plunder, seize the people's wealth, harm the people's lives, and do evil to the people. Their behavior has shaken the country's fundamental people's hearts. These people only have selfish interests in their eyes. Appointing them as officials is already a misfortune to the country. , tolerance towards them will only make their group more unscrupulous. In fact, the current situation in Daxia seems to be caused by your father's stupidity, but in fact it is their doing, and the cause of the disaster has been since the period of Taizu Renzong. It’s already been buried.”

Ji Wenjun looked surprised: "From the time of Taizu and Renzong? What does this mean?"

Hou Yao said: "This matter is quite complicated. Due to the corruption of the previous dynasty, Taizu was reduced to begging for food. Most of his family died of starvation. Only he relied on his extraordinary bravery and amazing wisdom to swallow up the world and become the emperor of the generation. His talents and strategies were unprecedented in ancient times, but after Taizu became emperor, he had to face a problem, that is, he had to use the group he hated most to govern the world, which was the so-called scholar-bureaucrat and civil servant group. In my heart, I don't trust any scholar-officials in my stock, so I massacre all kinds of corrupt officials, and invent various tortures to intimidate them. Finally, I set extremely low salary standards for the scholar-officials group, leaving huge hidden dangers to future generations. .”

"How can low salary standards become a hidden danger for future generations?"

"Taizu and Chengzu were both great men with great talents and great strategies. Therefore, the bureaucracy never caused much trouble. Until Renzong succeeded to the throne, the civil service group ushered in an era of great turnaround. Renzong never did anything for him because of his appearance. Chengzu was pleased, and Chengzu also mentioned on many occasions that he wanted to pass the throne to the third prince. However, the civil servant group had always tried to protect Renzong's status in the name of ordering the elders and younger ones, and finally succeeded in helping Renzong succeed to the throne. And Renzong succeeded After ascending to the throne, it is natural to reciprocate favors and give adequate rewards to the civil service group, and the problem of insufficient salary will be the first to bear the brunt."

Ji Wenjun nodded: "Isn't this easy? Just increase the official salary."

Hou Yao smiled and said: "If we put it now, this matter would be really easy to solve, but during Renzong's time, this was a big problem. Have you forgotten about Chengzu's five expeditions to Mobei? The five expeditions to Mobei had already drained the national treasury If you clear it out, will there be enough money left to raise officials’ salaries?”

"But I remember that during Renzong's time, the court was never short of money."

"It's not that the imperial court has never been short of money, but that all the money that the imperial court lacked has been made up. It was Renzong who made up the balance from the inner treasury."

After being reminded by Hou Yao, Ji Wenjun finally remembered: "Oh, yes, that's true. At the beginning, all the money the court lacked was made up by the internal treasury. The money in the internal treasury was all due to Zheng He's pursuit. When he was the prince of Moman, he earned his money through fighting. Unfortunately, when Renzong wanted to continue sending people to sea, he was dissuaded by the officials on the grounds that it was a waste of people and money. In fact, I still haven't thought about it. It can obviously make a lot of money. Why did Renzong believe the lies about wasting money and wasting people's money in the end?"

Hou Yao smiled and said: "It is true that we waste people and money. In fact, Zheng He's first and second pursuits were really waste of people and money. It was not until the third time that he made a huge profit. Isn't it the same with business? The first time. , the second time is all about building channels, you have to go out and find out what products others want, which products are easy to sell, and at what price they can be sold. Once you have figured out all these, the third time is when you really make money.

However, all these profits were monopolized by His Majesty Chengzu, and the bureaucracy did not get a single cent. However, facing the powerful Emperor Chengzu, they could only swallow their anger. During the Renzong period, when Renzong wanted to go overseas again, the bureaucracy was naturally not happy. Yes, that's why we took out the accounts of the first two trips to sea. Isn't it a waste of people and money? At this time, Emperor Renzong's internal treasury was still full, and he did not want to show off his face with the civil service group just to make money, so he had no choice but to compromise. What Emperor Renzong didn't know was that those civil servant groups who said that going overseas was a waste of money and people, and their own families had already started going overseas to make money. "

Ji Wenjun exclaimed: "What? How dare these people deceive the emperor like this?"

Hou Yao smiled and said: "What's wrong with that? As long as the profit is big enough, they can even sell their own ancestors. There's nothing else they can't do. As the saying goes, people die for money and birds die for food. That's what they say. The truth of this.”

Ji Wenjun said in disbelief: "Don't the people in the palace know?"

Hou Yao said with slight emotion: "Maybe there are one or two incompetent emperors who don't know, but the shrewd emperors must know it, otherwise your father would not be where he is today."

"What did you say?" Ji Wenjun looked at Hou Yao in shock: "You...are saying that my father...is not Hunjun?"

Hou Yao nodded: "Don't even think about it, who is calling your father the Hunjun? Why do those people call him Hunjun? As the king of a country, why does he want to talk to a chief minister who he personally promoted? Can’t make it? You don’t even know how much your father has done for this country to be hated by so many people.”

Ji Wenjun was really shocked this time and was speechless.

"Back to the question just now, Daxia has a stubborn problem, which is that officials' salaries are too low. But for so many years, why has no one come forward to propose a salary increase? The royal family may not know, but why don't the officials say anything? In fact, Renzong During this period, the bureaucracy reached a tacit agreement with the emperor, and the generals were left empty-handed, while the civil servants used their positions to find ways to make money. It was under this tacit agreement that the bureaucracy was born, which led to the decline of Daxia Rui. The main reason why it is becoming more and more difficult to collect.

The scope of consumption is too wide, including grains, rice grains, and cotton cloth. Due to different varieties and different regions, the value varies greatly, so the amount of consumption is determined by local officials. In this way, it is open to exploitation. People's officials have an aboveboard reason. Since then, it has become more and more difficult to collect taxes in Daxia. Every year, there are countless conflicts in various places due to unfair tax payment. These can all be blamed on the royal family, but in fact, there has never been any in Daxia's tax law. Excessive consumption of envy is said to be a thing, but it has become a default thing now, and there is more than one kind of similar tax, and consumption envy only meets the expenses of middle and high-level officials, while low-level officials will use more direct methods to seek benefits. To make a profit, one of their main methods is to kick the stems with the tip of the head.

The money obtained by officials through various means is far a hundred times higher than the salary that the royal family can provide, and they have the excuse that the salary is low and not enough to support their families, which allows them to exploit the people even more unscrupulously. In this case, only Only a fool would ask the emperor to increase his salary. In addition, the national treasury was insufficient at that time. If the salary was increased, the money could only be spent from the internal treasury, which was not a long-term solution. Therefore, Renzong could only acquiesce to the actions of the officials. This also led the atmosphere of Daxia officialdom to a point of no return. ”.