When Zhu Yuanzhang heard this, he nodded with satisfaction.
Now that the salary increase has been increased, I believe these officials will no longer have any reason to commit corruption in the future.
Hu Changan was also very pleased when he saw this.
It seems that Zhu Yuanzhang is a good person and can still listen and give advice.
Although Zhu Yuanzhang is indeed ruthless in dealing with corruption, he will still adopt specific measures as long as there are good suggestions.
Hu Changan thought for a moment, and finally took a step forward and said, "Your Majesty, I have an idea, but I don't know if it is feasible."
"Oh, tell me?" Zhu Yuanzhang was in a good mood and said to Hu Chang'an after hearing this.
Hu Changan casually helped him solve the largest corruption case in history during the Hongwu period.
Zhu Yuanzhang is in a very good mood now, and he is becoming more and more pleased with Hu Changan.
Now that Hu Changan had an idea, Zhu Yuanzhang naturally wanted to listen to it.
When Hu Changan heard this, he also smiled slightly and said: "Your Majesty, I suggest that the salary of each minister can be adjusted to a floating system, which will change every five years."
"Right now, your adults' salaries are basically half in food and half in silver."
"Food is okay, but the market price of silver can fluctuate."
"Perhaps one tael of silver can be exchanged for two stones of rice this year, but next year, one tael of silver can only be exchanged for one and a half stones of rice."
“I suggest that officials’ salaries should be assessed every five years based on the prevailing price level so that all officials, big and small, can afford the most basic living expenses at home.”
Hu Changan's words are naturally not without purpose.
During the Hongwu period, officials' salaries were still a mixture of food and money.
After all, Nanjing was the capital during the Hongwu period. Nanjing was located in the granary of the south of the Yangtze River, so it could naturally afford the "food wages" of these officials.
However, after Zhu Di, the founder of the Ming Dynasty, moved the capital to Beijing, the imperial court gradually could not afford to pay "food wages".
After all, Beijing is located in the north and not close to the main grain producing areas at that time.
If we want to pay "grain wages" to all officials in the DPRK and China, we must transfer grain from Jiangnan and other places.
After this trip, the freight on the road has naturally become a big problem.
So for the sake of convenience, during the reign of Emperor Chengzu Zhu Di of the Ming Dynasty, all the salaries of officials were converted into silver.
The salaries of officials up and down the imperial court were calculated in silver.
But by the middle and late Ming Dynasty, silver continued to depreciate.
Perhaps during the Chengzu period of the Ming Dynasty, the salaries of these officials were indeed enough to support their families.
But after the value of silver depreciated, it was difficult for these officials to earn enough to feed themselves.
It is said that the salary of Hai Rui, a famous upright official in the late Ming Dynasty, was only enough to feed his family for three days.
Since life was so hard, officials naturally paid attention to the people.
After all, not everyone in the court was like Hai Rui, who would rather starve his little daughter to death to maintain his integrity.
More and more officials become officials just to earn a living.
So when the imperial court collected grain in the late Ming Dynasty, all kinds of strange losses occurred one after another.
What about Zhe Color Huo Hua and Ling Jian Kick, all kinds of stupid and strange moves appear frequently.
The color loss is the loss of broken silver during forging.
And kicking the dendrobium with the tip of the stem refers to the official kicking the dendrobium on purpose when weighing the grain paid by the people, in order to pretend that the grain was lost during transportation on the road.
These strange tricks made the people miserable.
This invisibly shifts the problem of low salaries of officials to the common people.
In the middle and late Ming Dynasty, corruption became widespread.
Officials who are not corrupt have become a minority.
This is completely different from Zhu Yuanzhang's philosophy of governing the country during the Hongwu Dynasty.
When Zhu Yuanzhang heard this, he also seriously thought about the feasibility of this statement.
Review every five years, is this... necessary?
At this time, Hu Changan seemed to have noticed Zhu Yuanzhang's hesitation, and said loudly: "Your Majesty, although the five-year review is cumbersome, it is also a necessary means to ensure the livelihood of officials."
"Only when officials are well fed will they stop paying attention to the people."
"Even if there are some really greedy people who are obsessed with money, that's an isolated phenomenon."
"According to our verification this time, among all the corrupt officials, at least 90% of them took the risk and followed others to commit corruption because their families were too poor and could not afford to support their family."
"Those who still engage in corruption when their families have money are actually only a minority."
Zhu Yuanzhang was a little stunned when he heard this data.
More than 90%!
In other words, the vast majority of officials who are corrupt actually only stop after taking enough money to survive.
If their original salary was enough to cover their family's expenses, perhaps these people would not have taken the risk to embezzle people's money from the beginning!
Unexpectedly, it was the policy he personally designated that pushed everyone down the road of corruption!
When Zhu Yuanzhang heard this, he sighed deeply and said, "In that case, let's do what you want, Hu Aiqing."
"It's better to be more cumbersome at the top than to have officials below wantonly embezzle people's money."
"Wu Lin, Secretary of the Ministry of Personnel, starting from this year, please approve the necessary expenditures of officials every five years."
"After the verification is completed, please hand the original data directly to me."
"I will use this to determine whether it is necessary to increase or reduce the salaries of officials."
Upon hearing this, Wu Lin, the Minister of Civil Affairs, also stood up and marched out of the queue, shouting in response.
At this point, the officials' salaries have finally been finalized.
At this time, Zhu Yuanzhang seemed to have remembered something again, and said to the ministers at the foot of the steps: "Everyone, after this incident, I found that the numbers in the ledger are still too easy to tamper with."
"If it says one, just add a dash after it and it becomes two."
“It’s really easy to fake something like this.”
"I think we should invent a more cumbersome counting method to prevent later people from tampering with the account books and engaging in wanton corruption."
After hearing the words, all the ministers began to think about it.
When Hu Changan heard this, his eyes lit up.
Isn’t this the legendary traditional Chinese number!
Historically, after this collective corruption case, Zhu Yuanzhang ordered people to create traditional Chinese numerals.
As a result, it becomes much more difficult to tamper with the ledger.
In later generations, the numbers on various bank bills and check invoices also used traditional Chinese numerals.
This kind of unchangeable number greatly reduces the difficulty of managing various tickets.
This can also be said to be one of the important inventions in history.
Hu Changan looked at his colleagues who were thinking hard and smiled slightly.
Since traditional Chinese numerals haven't been invented yet, Hu Changan doesn't mind pushing everyone.
