Chapter 857 Unprecedented expansion of imperial power
In addition to the luxury goods market, Liu Bei also plans to fully control their salt and grain markets.
Just the luxury goods market is not enough to fully control the Western Region's economy. Only the market for key commodities can be fully controlled to truly control it.
He planned to spend some time and energy to bribe and control the influential officials in their country, making it convenient for them, and opening up the salt and grain markets so that the "merchants" of the Han Empire could participate in control.
When their economy and food are almost under control, and the ruling class is almost eroded, it will be time to close the net. By that time, not to mention the economy, the military will probably be in a balanced situation - because all countries have
There is a "new army" that has received military training.
It’s really hard to say whether they really want the Han Empire or their own country!
Although he will not launch military operations in the short term, Liu Bei does not intend to stop in terms of business and politics.
Standing on the high ground of civilization, the Han Empire naturally had an advantage in its external exports and the moral high ground, while the resistance of these small countries was naturally weak and it was difficult to find strong allies.
Therefore, the next stage of the task is to open up the million-level population market in the Western Regions, connect it to the Central Asian market, and create a new product dumping ground for the Han Empire. Otherwise, as the productivity of the Han Empire gradually increases, there will be too many products.
If it doesn't sell, it'll be ugly.
Deflation is not a good thing. While finding enough precious metals, there must also be enough dumping places for goods. Relying only on the internal market of the Han Empire is slightly insufficient.
This task will be specifically handed over to the Western Region Protectorate.
But instead of leaving it to Zhang Fei and Zhao Yun, who are nominally the Protectors and Changshi, Liu Bei plans to leave the specific operation of this matter to Meng Tuo.
This guy is good at this.
When he was the governor of Liangzhou, he was defeated in the military. Now no one can make the big man suffer, so Meng Tuo's ability to work up and down the camp is just suitable for this.
Liu Bei appointed Meng Tuo as Sima, the Protector of the Western Regions.
In this way, he is nominally Zhang Fei's Sima, but in fact he acts alone, directly reports to Liu Bei, and alone leads a political and business team, specifically responsible for opening up political and business relations in various countries, allowing the Third Reich's business teams to enter the markets of various countries, and comprehensively
Control the economic lifeline of the Western Region.
Liu Bei believed that Meng Tuo would be able to perform this task well.
After a series of things were settled, it was already the end of February in the fifth year of Zhenguan. As the weather slowly got warmer, Liu Bei's heart gradually began to become restless.
From the end of the third year of Zhenguan to the fourth year of Zhenguan, and then to January of the fifth year of Zhenguan, the main thing the Han Empire did was to restore its rule over the Western Regions, and finally succeeded in achieving its goal, shocking the Western Regions, becoming famous in Central Asia, and
The Western Regions established a relatively solid foundation for governance.
At the same time, the entire Han Empire has not promulgated any large-scale new decrees for nearly a year and a half. Everything is following the trend and following the rules set in the second and first half of the third year of Zhenguan.
Move forward slowly, everything is advancing, everything is being executed slowly, waiting for results.
Some things cannot be accomplished quickly, and some things cannot be achieved overnight.
It takes at least three years to develop a piece of wasteland. No matter how fast the crops grow, it will take half a year to harvest. Liu Bei's one and a half year of suspension is only enough to complete 70% of the national reconstruction task, and there is still 3% left.
Ten is not finished yet.
And this is already the fastest and fastest speed. This is already the fastest speed that can be achieved under the current state of productivity. If it exceeds a little bit, people's subjective initiative will have problems, and there will be a fat pig race.
An elephant.
Therefore, in the late fourth year of Zhenguan, Liu Bei began to take the initiative to suppress signs of seeking speed and results. He sent officials from Yushitai to patrol everywhere, specifically to catch those who forcibly carried out political performance projects without respecting objective laws, and dealt with some
Those who report good news but not bad news will be severely punished.
In the second half of the fourth year of Zhenguan, more than 70 officials, including three county governors, were singled out and executed as typical examples by the Yushitai because they were looking for speed and results.
So in the later period, this situation was alleviated. The number of good news reports handed to Liu Bei from all over the country was reduced a lot. The remaining ones who still dared to hand it over were basically genuine.
For example, Xun Yu, the governor of Qingzhou, handed over the merit list of Qingzhou's water conservancy projects and land reclamation.
There is also a report of achievements in land reclamation and the advancement of the slave restriction order in Yangzhou sent by Cheng Yu, the governor of Yangzhou.
It can be said to be a real political achievement. The officials of Yushitai went to inspect a large area and found nothing wrong. They came back and reported to Liu Bei, saying that there was a scene of political harmony and harmony in Qingzhou and Yangzhou, and everyone was busy.
own career, and developed a very concerned attitude towards government affairs.
People are running, but if they pass by a government office while running, they will always stop to look at the latest government announcements and see what the latest developments are.
Because some trends in the government often bring new breakthroughs to people, people who were indifferent or simply afraid of the government in the past have gradually begun to pay attention to the trends in the government, and even a new profession has appeared on the market for this purpose.
.
Professional government policy explainer.
They tend to follow the government's trends more closely than the average person. Once they discover some new government announcements, they immediately step forward to interpret them, take notes, and then take them to the market to set up a stall and start promoting the government's new policies.
At first, these people were just making small fuss among themselves. Later, some people in the catering industry realized the business opportunities, so they approached these people to discuss cooperation with them, and asked them to open policy-explaining stalls near catering stores.
The flow of people attracted in this way can provide business for catering shops.
In order to further convert customer flow, these catering industry bosses also require these policy explainers to dedicate their time to explaining the policy when people are hungry, in order to make money, and then pay dividends to these policy explainers.
This situation fully reflects people's attention and concern for government policies.
In order to further understand the public sentiment, Yushitai officials deliberately went to the streets to conduct "private visits" incognito, asking locals about their living conditions.
From these visits, they learned that people in Qingzhou and Yangzhou are all busy with their careers, the pace of life has become faster, and everyone walks faster on the street than people in other places.
After learning the news, Liu Bei knew that this was some concrete manifestation of economic development.
Qingzhou and Yangzhou are serious about economic development, and the power of incremental society is more obvious in these two places. The Third Reich has begun to get rid of chaos and embarked on the fast track of development. For most people, this
It's all a good thing.
All in all, in this period of great development in the country, Liu Bei also restrained his desire to do big things, and tried his best to give the people more time to adapt and react, so that the decree could be fully infiltrated into
The lowest level of society.
Liu Bei did not want to cast a shadow over the serious development trend he had finally ushered in because of his high demands.
During this period, Liu Bei further perfected his conception of the imperial examination system and the law of nine-rank officials.
He observed the results of the implementation of the Nine-Rank Officials and Personnel Law in the military, collected a lot of data, and collected a lot of information. He was satisfied with the promotion of the Nine-Rank Officials and Personnel Law, so he was determined to promote the Nine-Rank Officials and Personnel Law in the administrative bureaucracy.
The decision of the official and human law.
This was a major matter. Starting from March to June of the fifth year of Zhenguan, Liu Bei held several briefings in three months to present some of his ideas to the Luoyang court from top to bottom and from the inside out.
Over and over again.
By July, it was an open secret that Liu Bei was preparing to promote the Nine-Rank Officials Law in the court.
Everyone has already understood the contents of the Ninth-Rank Officials Law in advance, and some people have also found some results promoted by the army from acquaintances in the army, as well as some personal reflections.
Generally speaking, there is not much resistance. Many people just have some doubts about how their official positions will be classified and whether their salary will increase or decrease.
These matters that are closely related to their interests will still make them feel anxious to some extent.
However, on the whole, they do not have a strong opinion on the promotion of the Nine-Rank Official Personnel Law, and they do not really want to resist this new system.
Therefore, in July of the fifth year of Zhenguan, Liu Bei officially announced the abolition of the old official system and implemented a new official system with the Nine-Rank Officials and Personnel Law as the core, reshaping the entire administrative bureaucracy of the Han Dynasty.
From the first rank to the ninth rank, and from the ninth rank to the eighteenth rank, all officials will re-establish their positions in the Han Empire according to this system.
Similarly, in this system, there are no official positions such as prime minister or prime minister. The highest official positions are Taishi, Taifu and Taibao, which are the first-class civil servants, followed by Situ, Sikong and Taiwei, in the traditional sense.
Sangong is an official from the first rank.
These six official positions once held real power, but in the following years they lost their real power and turned into honorary and empty positions. They had high status but no serious authority. By the time of the Third Reich, this situation became even more severe.
It is clear that when Liu Bei determines the new official system, he will directly institutionalize it.
The six official positions of Zhengyipin and Congyipin belong to absolutely high-ranking official ranks and enjoy the highest status and benefits, but they have no real power and are just honorary posts.
The most powerful official of Zhengerbajing is in the position of Zhengerpin.
Officials of the second rank include the eight ministers, as well as the full-time officers of the twelve departments of Yushitai, Zhongshutai, Privy Council, and Military Training Department. They are the official rank of the second rank and belong to the real powerful bosses.
The second-grade official positions include Dahonglu, Zhijinwu, Zongzheng, Shaofu, the second-grade deputy director of the twelve departments, etc. They are slightly inferior to the second-grade officials in terms of status and power, but their status and power are still the same.
He is very tall and can be considered a powerful person and can enter the decision-making circle.
The third-level official positions are mainly the deputy staff of the local governor and the second-level department chief, as well as more special positions such as the commander of the East Garden and the Protector of the Western Regions. In addition, the county governors are the fourth-level positions, while those in large counties are
The rank of commander belongs to the sixth-rank position, and the magistrate of a small county belongs to the rank of subordinate rank.
Liu Bei carefully sorted out the official positions in the empire, allowing officials to know where they were in this new nine-level and eighteen-level system, and what kind of rights, responsibilities, and benefits they could have.
Overall, most people are satisfied. Although this brand new system has brought a lot of new things to everyone, the difference between the new positioning and the old positioning is not very big.
I used to be a high-ranking official, but I am still a high-ranking official now. I used to be a shrimp, but now I will not become a big fish. It is just that this system has made the subdivision of official positions more clear, making some originally vague official positions clearly visible, and some things that were easy to arise in the past.
The dispute thus lost its ground for existence.
The most surprising thing is that in the nine-level and eighteen-level system, Liu Bei made it clear for the first time that officials are also part of this system.
He left the four official ranks of the ninth rank, the ninth rank, the eighth rank and the eighth rank to the officials. He brought in the officials who accounted for the majority of the official team and set a standard official salary for them.
and official welfare. For the first time, it was officially recognized that all officials are national civil servants and have the right to enjoy normal court welfare.
At the same time, Liu Bei also clarified the concept that officials are high-grade officials and officials are low-grade officials, and established the basic principle that officials and officials can communicate with each other and are not isolated.
Because of the foundation of more than three months of briefings, there was not much resistance to the promotion of this system. It was promoted in July of the fifth year of Zhenguan and was implemented at the Luoyang court in August of the fifth year of Zhenguan. It is expected that there will be two more
It will take more than a month to implement at the local level.
By the end of September in the fifth year of Zhenguan, seeing that this system was operating very well, Liu Bei relaxed his hands and officially announced that he would promote the implementation of the imperial examination system.
He announced that after hundreds of years of vicissitudes, the examination and evaluation system has been proven to be the most appropriate selection method that cannot select the best talents.
During these years, the imperial examination system almost stagnated, and the operation of the imperial court had almost nothing to do with it, nor did it affect the execution of government affairs. On the contrary, the Han Dynasty prospered, and the country became more prosperous day by day.
Since Emperor Xiaohuan and the late Emperor, there has been almost no period in which China has developed better and faster than the current period.
So, what else can you guys say?
After a long period of investigation and careful thinking, Liu Bei recalled his experience in the imperial examinations, which was almost like a family, and decided to completely abolish the imperial examination system and use the imperial examination system as the talent selection system of the Han Dynasty to select talents.
, for national use.
When Liu Bei said this, he actually removed the last fig leaf of the inspection and promotion system.
The emperor personally experienced all aspects of the inspection system, knew its internal mysteries and tricks, and went through the complete process, so he decided to adopt a more appropriate system. No one can say that this is wrong.
Moreover, with Liu Bei's years of struggle, the century-old structure of the Five Classics and Fourteen Family Laws has been shattered. The high gentry clan has disappeared, and they are no longer able to become an independent political force to support the operation of the imperial examination system.
The other group that benefited the most from this system - the county governors, governors and three princes, the generals also became Liu Bei's complete subordinates, unable to fight against Liu Bei and protect the personnel privileges they obtained because of the inspection system.
So facing the imperial examination system, they had no choice.
Therefore, since Qin Shihuang unified the six kingdoms, the empire's personnel and power structure has undergone unprecedented drastic changes.
The empire's personnel power was unprecedentedly concentrated in the center, in one department, and in the hands of one person. The formal implementation of the Nine-Rank Official Personnel Law also meant that Liu Bei's power as emperor was highly concentrated.
Imperial power has achieved unprecedented expansion to a great extent. Whether it is personal significance or institutional significance, imperial power has achieved a great leap. Starting from Qin Shihuang, among all the emperors, no one has more power than Liu Bei.
It was only natural that the accompanying imperial examination system be announced and promoted during this period.
Since you have accepted the Nine-Rank Officials and Personnel Law, you must accept the supporting imperial examination system. There is no reason for the ministers and officials to hinder the implementation of the imperial examination system.
No matter what they thought in their hearts, a new era had arrived and they had no choice.