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Chapter 458: The Plan Was Disrupted (Part 2)

Although the affairs of Prince De and Duke Yansheng's Mansion have come to an end, the imperial examination, imperial examination training, and the establishment of the Inspection Department and Qingtian Department all mean that he will continue to stay in Shandong for a while.

In the following days, Zhu Youjian and Hong Chengchou discussed the establishment of the Inspection Department and Qingtian Department.

Hong Chengchou greatly appreciated Zhu Youjian's establishment of the Inspection Department and the Qingtian Department. Although the Ming Dynasty sent a patrol censor in each province, and the Inspectorate and the Ministry of Personnel were also responsible for inspecting local officials, the patrol censor was only one person after all.

The Ministry of Civil Affairs was also far away from the capital, and the imperial court was really unable to control the corruption of local officials.

It was better in the early Ming Dynasty. Because of the severe punishments imposed by Emperor Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang, official corruption was not that severe. After Emperor Taizu, corruption among officials could no longer be controlled. By the Chongzhen period, almost no official was corrupt.

Regardless of whether they are big officials in the imperial court or local officials, as long as they have some power in their hands, they will try their best to get money into their pockets. If the money embezzled by officials across the country are added up every year, it is estimated to be dozens of times the revenue of the national treasury...

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Countless amounts of money have gone into the pockets of these corrupt officials. Countless people have been oppressed and exploited, living a life without enough food. In times of disaster, they sell their children and daughters and become refugees. If they can't bear it anymore, they take risks and rebel...

....

In fact, the land of China is vast and rich in resources. If the officials manage the Qingming Festival and if the court and local officials are effective, even in years of famine, too many people will not starve to death. After all, the national population during the Chongzhen period was officially only 60 to 70 million.

The hidden population in the world is only over 100 million.

And if high-yielding crops such as sweet potatoes, potatoes, and corn are fully promoted, the Little Ice Age will not have passed. Even if the weather is still cold, there will be no problem in feeding more than 100 million people.

The current problem is that wealth and food are severely unevenly distributed. Most of the food wealth is occupied by gentry, merchants, and corrupt officials, while the poor people have no food and clothing, and the imperial treasury is empty.

In other words, the current main contradiction of the Ming Dynasty is the serious uneven distribution of land wealth. It is the contradiction between the gentry landlord class and the vast number of peasants and poor people. This contradiction is basically irreconcilable. The gentry class is extremely greedy and wants to take away what the people have.

The last grain of food in some lands is corrupt officials

The officials are eager to take away the last copper from the people, but the ordinary people have no power to resist when faced with the powerful, and can only be slaughtered by others. If they can't bear it, they can only take risks and rebel. That's why there are uprisings one after another in various provinces.

The refugee army in northern Shaanxi that overthrew the Ming Dynasty in another time and space.

After experiencing the soul wandering, Zhu Youjian saw the current situation of the Ming Dynasty very clearly. He knew that it was impossible to change the status quo by just tinkering. The power of the gentry class was too strong, controlling the court and the place, and he could not rely on it.

How did the court officials who represented the gentry deal with the gentry? This was the failure of Zhang Juzheng's reform.

Therefore, if you want to completely change the Ming Dynasty, you must overthrow the gentry class, or at least completely cancel the privileges of the gentry class. In addition to the army in hand, the only power Zhu Youjian can rely on is the broad masses of the people, the poor and hungry clans, and the impoverished people.

Scholars are considered members of the people and a force that can be relied on.

There are many things that you just don't know how to do if you stay in the palace. Only by stepping out and going deep among the people can you find a solution.

Zhu Youjian's series of actions also frightened the gentry and officials in Shandong. All the officials in the three divisions of Shandong and Jinan Prefecture were dealt with, while the officials in other prefectures and counties were trembling with fear, fearing that the emperor's thunderous wrath would fall on their heads.

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Within half a month, more than a dozen officials from Qingzhou Prefecture, Dongchang Prefecture, and Laizhou Prefecture submitted their resignations. Some state and county officials even left without receiving a reply from the court. Of course, running away directly would be punished by the court or even thrown away.

If they continue to stay, they are likely to lose their lives. These officials still know how to make a choice.

Not only the officials, but also the subordinate officials in the yamen in various places were panicked. Hundreds of officials in Jinan Prefecture were killed, which deeply shocked them. It turned out that working in the yamen was so dangerous.

Unlike officials, many of the positions of civil servants are inherited from fathers and sons. Many civil servants have been subordinates for generations. After leaving the yamen, they don't know what to do or even where to go.

Since the emperor wanted to eradicate corruption, he had to find a way to save himself. So overnight, fires broke out in many yamen. Many files in the yamen were burned, warehouses caught fire, and all kinds of bizarre things happened one after another.

When the news reached Jinan, Zhu Youjian was furious. He had not originally planned to take action against other prefectures and counties, but he did not expect that these subordinate officials went too far!

Zhu Youjian immediately issued an order to dispatch personnel to various prefectures and counties to deal with these fire incidents. In any yamen where there was a fire, all officials were removed from their posts and imprisoned. Since no evidence of their corruption crimes could be found in the yamen, they sought evidence from the people and posted a list to make the people enthusiastic.

Expose. These officials have done too many evil things and oppressed too many good people in their daily lives. Now that the emperor has sent imperial envoys to investigate the case, people must take the initiative to come forward and report them.

Now that these officials have jumped out on their own initiative, let's conduct a thorough cleanup in Shandong!

However, this disrupted Zhu Youjian's plan and forced him to stay in Jinan City for a longer time. Moreover, there are six prefectures, fifteen states and fifty-one Zhili counties in Shandong, and each state has several

The prefecture and county are too big and have too many officials. With the people Zhu Youjian has now, he simply cannot send out enough people. Unless poor scholars are recruited locally, but even if they are recruited, they cannot be used all at once.

You must undergo at least a period of training before you can become a qualified official.

But since there is a problem, it must be solved. Even if you stay in Shandong for a year, you must clarify things here!

If there are not enough officials, they will be recruited locally. Zhu Youjian issued an order to hold the Enke Examination again and recruit officials from all people in Shandong, regardless of whether they are scholars or not, as long as they can read and write and know some arithmetic, even domestic slaves.

Those with a lowly status can also take the exam. Those who pass the exam will be awarded as reserve officials. After becoming an official, they will immediately leave the lowly status and become an ordinary citizen.

Scholars are human beings, and so are domestic slaves, Lehu and other lowly people. Zhu Youjian decided to give everyone a chance. As long as they have talents, they are willing to use them, regardless of the style!

Of course, those who are well-educated and literate among the lowly books are not always right. The real main force of recruiting is those scholars, those poor scholars who have no hope of taking the imperial examination and even a larger number of children. Only they are willing to be civil servants.

After a batch of people passed the exam, Cao Bianjiao, Liu Wenbing and others were immediately put in charge of training. After a month or two, they were sent to various prefectures and counties to work, accompanied by the army to provide military assistance.

Of course, as a result, the troops in hand were not enough, so Zhu Youjian issued an order and ordered Lu Xiangsheng, the governor of Jiliao, to dispatch 20,000 imperial guards to Shandong. Zhu Youjian's series of decisions also caused the imperial court in Beijing to
Chapter completed!
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