Chapter 313: Beheading in public to express the anger of the people
The sky was pitch black, but the lights in the royal palace were still bright.
Zhang Yangquan stood quietly outside the dormitory, only hearing bursts of laughter and the sound of a baby crying coming from the house.
"Little sister, don't put your fingers in his mouth, you made Siye cry!"
"Sister, he cried just because I listened to you and took out my finger... Look, after I put it in his mouth, he stopped crying!"
"Aunt Li, Siye, are you hungry again? Why do you like sucking your fingers so much?"
"Your Highness, children are like this, so you don't have to be nervous. You just fed the milk and you can't feed it anymore!"
Hearing the conversation inside the room, Zhang Yangquan's worries suddenly disappeared.
Suddenly, he turned around and walked towards the front house again.
The guard holding a lantern on the side said: "Your Majesty, did you forget to take something?"
Zhang Yangquan waved his hand and said: "There are some things that haven't been dealt with yet. You go and make arrangements. I have to go to Geng Mansion."
Geng San's mansion is adjacent to Wang Da's mansion, diagonally opposite the Hou Mansion, and less than a hundred feet away from the Oriole Garden.
Geng San and Shu Ting were both shocked to learn that Zhang Yangquan was visiting late at night, and hurriedly brought their servants out to greet him.
After Zhang Yangquan entered the lobby, he sat down at the top, glanced left and right, and asked, "Why don't you see the four brothers Geng?"
Geng San smiled and said: "Your Majesty, my brother has been running outside every night recently, and he doesn't know what he is doing!"
Zhang Yangquan nodded and looked at Shu Ting.
"Mrs. Geng, I am still here because of that bloody letter. I have a few questions to ask you again!"
Shu Ting lowered her head and said, "Excuse me, Your Majesty."
Zhang Yangquan pondered for a while and said, "When you passed by Danyang County, did you see the rice sowing in Danyang County?"
Shu Ting said: "We can see a lot on both sides of the canal!"
“Are all the new rice being promoted?”
Shu Ting clicked her chin: "Yes, they are all new rice!"
Zhang Yangquan frowned. From this point of view, Chen Ning's promotion of new rice was indeed successful, and there was no fraud.
Logically speaking, as long as new rice is planted, the common people should be able to see the advantages of the new rice. It is impossible to conflict with the government because of this, or even write a bloody letter to complain!
Shu Ting suddenly said: "By the way, my little girl also discovered something strange when she passed through Danyang County!"
Zhang Yangquan asked quickly: "What's the matter?"
"Bridges, roads and canals are being built everywhere in Danyang County. In many places, there are even officers and soldiers supervising and even whipping the laborers to urge them to work!"
There was a bang in Zhang Yangquan's mind, and he finally knew where the problem was!
It must be that he customized infrastructure construction to meet the official evaluation standards. In order to obtain college entrance examination evaluations, some radical officials ordered the forced recruitment of civilians and built fortifications everywhere.
This caused public dissatisfaction to boil, and the people were angry and wrote in blood!
"Your Majesty, what's wrong with you?" Geng San asked cautiously.
Zhang Yangquan took a deep breath: "It's okay. Thanks to you for telling me the situation in time this time. I didn't think carefully and made a mistake."
Shu Ting is a smart person, and she vaguely understands that the blood letter is related to Zhang Yangquan's policies.
"Your Majesty, there is no need to blame yourself. My daughter traveled from Qingyuan to Jiangdu and saw that the lives of the people along the way were gradually returning to peace. Many people were praising you. The situation in Danyang is just a special case!"
Zhang Yangquan sighed: "A mistake is a mistake. Mrs. Geng doesn't have to make excuses for me. But this incident also reminded me that I will be more careful in the future to avoid making similar mistakes again!"
He stood up and said, "Okay, I'm leaving now so I won't disturb you guys."
The personal guards sent to Danyang to investigate came back three days later, taking Chen Ning with them.
Just as Zhang Yangquan expected, the problem lies in his official evaluation policy.
In order to win the evaluation, Chen Ning forcibly recruited people to carry out large-scale construction projects. The burden of labor was several times heavier than during the Yuan Dynasty's rule.
The people were overwhelmed and wanted to go to Jiangdu Mansion to file a complaint.
After Chen Ning was brought into the study, he immediately knelt down and shouted to Qu: "Your Majesty, all the ministers are building bridges and roads vigorously in accordance with the policies you conveyed!"
Zhang Yangquan stared at him and said word by word: "Chen Ning, why do I ask you to build bridges and roads?"
Chen Ning was stunned.
Zhang Yangquan answered for him: "It is to improve people's livelihood and make people's lives better. You forcefully mobilized people's power, forced them to write a letter of blood, and sent government soldiers to arrest them. Is this also the policy I conveyed?"
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Chen Ning's face turned pale and she was trembling all over.
Zhang Yangquan waved his hand and said: "Drag him down, pull him to the Danyang County Gate Tower, and behead him in public to show the anger of the people! Let Zhongshu Province draft this man's crime into a document, and send a copy to all prefectures and counties, and post it on the south side of the county government office.
Wall, warn all officials!"
"Your Majesty, have mercy on me! My Majesty, please have mercy on me!" Chen Ning was dragged down amid screams.
Zhang Yangquan leaned on the back of his chair, pondered for a long time, and suddenly ordered: "Go and get all the documents related to corvee labor, and ask the prime ministers to come over by the way!"
One of the bodyguards agreed to go.
The brochure was quickly brought over, and Zhang Yangquan looked through it carefully.
There were three types of corvee service in the Yuan Dynasty.
The first type is professional corvee, which includes four categories: military service, station service, express delivery service, and hawk hunting service.
Needless to say, military service is performed by military households.
Station servants work at water stations and land stations and are responsible for providing food, accommodation, water transportation, etc. to officials.
Express couriers are postal couriers, responsible for delivering official documents.
The falcon hunting room is dedicated to hunting and raising falcons for the royal family.
This kind of corvee lasts a lifetime, which is equivalent to a civil servant. The pay is not bad, it is an iron rice bowl, and it is not too hard.
The real hard work is the following two.
Professional service and miscellaneous service.
Official servants are government servants, jailers who guard cells, treasury guards who guard warehouses, etc.
This kind of service initially consisted of monthly labor service, and later it formed a fixed group of subordinate staff, with no wages to be paid, just like Zhou Laosi whom Qin Lingsi met before.
Like professional corvees, they also make a living by working as laborers, but they have no wages to earn, so they try to find ways to make money, which is deeply hated by the people.
Although servants are detested by the common people, with their little power, they can still dominate, earn a lot of money, and live a worry-free life.
The worst thing is the miscellaneous labor.
Building cities, building bridges and roads, constructing palaces, building tombs, repairing canals, transporting grain and grass, and other hard work are all miscellaneous labor tasks.
This time Chen Ning also recruited all miscellaneous soldiers.
All are temporary recruitments without any prior warning.
As soon as the conscription order comes out, even if you want to marry your wife tomorrow, you have to put it down and report to the government, otherwise it will be a serious crime of desertion.
And once you go there, you don’t know how long it will last, it all depends on the decision of the officials above.
Of course, miscellaneous military service can be avoided by paying money, so in the end only poor people need to do this kind of service, and rich people can still avoid it with money.
Throughout history, the Qin Dynasty had the heaviest corvee service. Liu Bang had to hide in Mangdang Mountain because he escaped partially while escorting the slaves, and later rebelled and conquered the world.
During the Sui Dynasty, Yang Guang also collected corvees to build the Grand Canal, which aroused public resentment and caused chaos in the world.
It can be seen from this that the people must be dissatisfied when performing miscellaneous labor, and it is easy to be passive and sabotage.
Therefore, strictly speaking, this kind of forced recruitment of people's power is not only a cruel exploitation of the people, but also a huge waste of people's power.
If these wasted people's power are utilized and allowed to open up wasteland for farming or produce other things, productivity will be greatly improved.
The increased productivity is enough for the government to collect more tax revenue and hire some professionals to carry out infrastructure construction.
In Zhang Yangquan's view, corvee, a behavior that seeks to save trouble and does not care about people's power, is an extremely backward system, and Zhang Yangquan is determined to abolish it!
But having said that, this system has lasted for more than a thousand years. Just like the transformation from the conscription system to the recruitment system, if the conscription system is transformed into the recruitment system, there will be huge obstacles.
In history, the conscription system also fluctuated many times in the conscription system and the recruitment system.
Therefore, if you directly order the abolition of corvee service, many officials will oppose it.
Even if he enforces it with the dignity of the king of Chu, the officials below will be resistant, and the efficiency will be greatly reduced.
Therefore, we still need to find a good reason to get several prime ministers to support the ban.