Zhang Gao originally wanted to plan and solve the Ma Chu matter after he came back, but since the day he returned to the court, civil affairs affairs have come to the fore, and many of them are major issues that only he, the emperor, can decide.
Zhang Yan originally wanted to push these things back. After all, the world was uncertain and military was the most important thing, but after thinking about it, he couldn't do this.
Don't look at it now that Zhang Yan has a lot of things waiting for him as soon as he returns to Beijing, but this is the "scenery" that belongs to Zhang Zhou's family.
This situation did not exist in the previous Later Liang, Later Tang, and Later Jin. Even since the vassal towns were segregated in the late Tang Dynasty, there has not been such a "grand occasion".
Because the status of literati at this time was too low, they were not taken seriously, which led to a very serious problem.
It’s not that no one studies anymore. Learning knowledge is always the driving force for human progress and is a preference engraved in human genes. Therefore, even in the fifth generation, there are many people who study literature.
The very serious problem caused by this is actually that civil servants began to fish on a large scale. This is not because the good positions are occupied by military personnel, the status is low, and the remuneration is also low. Well, I will work less.
The level of fishing among the civil servants of the Five Dynasties was simply crazy. Let alone state and county officials, middle and lower-level officials in the court, such as Feng Dao and He Ning, were all masters of fishing.
From the beginning, they were the emperor who didn't ask for advice and didn't give advice. Later, they were the emperor who didn't give advice even when asked. They were basically dealing with things every day.
If you discover social evils, you will not report them. When the emperor discovers them, or the conflicts cannot be concealed, they will start to make peace with them.
This led to a series of quite serious consequences. After the civil servants failed, the emperor had no choice but to use military men more and more. At the same time, out of uneasiness about military men, he often began to trust his cronies and masterminds.
Empress Liu interfered with politics in the Zhuangzong period of the late Tang Dynasty, and Jing Jin, the court official, monopolized power. An Chongjie, the treacherous prime minister in the Mingzong period of the late Tang Dynasty, Sang Weihan during the Shi Jingtang period, and Feng Yu during the Shi Chonggui period were all violent manifestations of this consequence.
Among them, Sang Weihan is better, at least he is really talented, but the others are not very educated themselves, and their troubles are particularly violent.
For example, Jing Jin recruited maids to enrich the palace for Li Cunxu, and kidnapped 3,000 young women at one time. He even dared to kidnap the family members of his mother Wei Boyabing, which attracted the attention of the whole world!
Li Cunxu's death was truly unjust. He himself relied on the silver spear effect of Wei Boya's soldiers, which played a key role in the Battle of Huliupo and the Battle of Desheng, to restrain Zhu Liang.
After only a few years, Wei Boya soldiers were regarded as paper tigers and even their family members were dared to be kidnapped.
So without any accident, Zhuangzong was bitten to death by Wei Boya's soldiers within a few years.
So after the establishment of the Zhou Kingdom, Zhang Yan was keenly aware of the lifeless fishing culture below.
Because I, Zhang Shengren, am very familiar with this stuff. Before I came out to make short videos, Zhang Shengren was famous as a fishing expert in a certain state-owned enterprise.
After understanding the underlying reasons, Zhang Gao took advantage of the opportunity of Yelv Deguang to clean up the officials of the later Jin Dynasty, and promptly eliminated a large number of redundant officials.
He also took advantage of the opportunity of restructuring to return the official positions that originally belonged to civilian officials but had been occupied by military men to civilian officials.
Afterwards, he set an example in the court and paid attention to the opinions of all the officials. When any civil servant, even a junior official of the eighth or ninth grade, submitted a letter, Zhang Yan would listen carefully and either answer it himself, or let six ministers from Zhongshu Province answer on his behalf.
For each official who submitted a letter, Zhang Yan prepared a small gift to encourage them, although it was only ten pounds of mutton, a few pounds of sugar, a few bolts of cloth or a jar of fine wine.
But it was also a gift from the emperor! This greatly stimulated the enthusiasm of court officials to write letters and express their opinions.
At the same time, Zhang Gao also responded very quickly to those correct suggestions.
Last year, a city gate officer from Wanshengmen in the west of Kaifeng Prefecture submitted a letter to Zhangtai of Zhongshu Province, saying that the carriages used by Empress Dowager Ciyou to travel were too large and too large, and she liked to leave the city when it was crowded, often causing inconvenience to the people.
Zhang Yan's aunt, the Empress Dowager Ciyou, was furious after hearing this. She ordered her number one scoundrel, the eldest princess of South Korea, Li Zhen'er, to lead the city gate captain of Wanshengmen to have his legs broken.
When Zhang Gao found out about this, he severely punished Li Zhen'er, the eldest princess of Korea, and confiscated twenty of her households.
He also ordered his servants to carry the city gate captain of Wanshengmen to the Zhuque Gate, personally condolences to the city gate captain, expressed his apology to him, and even compensated the city gate captain for the twenty households of the eldest princess of South Korea as decoction and medicine expenses.
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Then he ordered a separate small gate to be opened on the right side of Wansheng Gate to create a special passage for Empress Dowager Ciyou to visit the city.
The city gate captain who continued to guard Wansheng Gate with his broken leg became a "beautiful landscape."
At the same time, the county lieutenant of Kaifeng County, Kaifeng Prefecture, Tokyo suggested that the duties of the Tokyo Seven Gate Inspection Commission were confused with those of the county lieutenants of Chenliu County and Kaifeng County, Chi County, Kaifeng Prefecture, and that the responsibilities and powers were unclear.
Zhang Zhi also responded immediately and ordered the Privy Council, the Ministry of Personnel, and the Ministry of Household Affairs to return the civil and public security in the city to Kaifeng and Chenliu counties.
The seven inspection envoys are also divided into the inner city inspection envoys, the east city inspection envoys and the west city inspection envoys.
He is only responsible for detecting the lawlessness of noble ministers, officials and wealthy businessmen who cannot be managed in the two counties, as well as inspecting the private possession of armor, long weapons and crossbows in the three cities.
The Kaifeng County lieutenant who raised the question was immediately promoted to Tokyo East City Inspection Envoy.
At the same time, Zhang Zhang stipulated that officials of the fifth rank or above in the central court who failed to write a letter to express their opinions once a month would take strict measures such as fines, demotion or even dismissal.
Zhang Zhang paid such attention to the small aspects, and naturally paid more attention to the big aspects.
Zhang Zhou's administrative ability in the officialdom was finally stimulated at the expense of being too tired to go back to the harem and flirting with Dafu.
Therefore, as soon as Zhang Shengren, who had "brought his own fault", returned to Beijing, he was overwhelmed by memorials.
He had no choice but to exempt Yin Zhengqi (Yin Yaozi) who was staying in Tokyo from his position as the commander of the imperial guard and the seven military commanders in Tokyo.
Then Yin Zhengqi was appointed as the commander of the Jiangnan capital of Chijie, and he led the 3,000 Zuolongxiang Guards, the remaining pro-army troops, southward to Xiangyang Prefecture.
The main task of Yin Zhengqi (Yin Yaozi) is to coordinate the two senior officials Liu Zaisheng and Ma Zhaoyuan (Ma Yaozi) to prepare in advance to settle the matter between Nanping and Ma Chu.
I, Zhang Shengren, must finish things in Tokyo before I can continue going south.
Among the things at hand, the most urgent thing at the moment is to abolish the harsh government that continued from the previous dynasty and even from the end of the Tang Dynasty, as well as the deeper issue of taxation.
The cause of the matter was Zhang Zhi's abolition of exorbitant taxes and Dingkou silver in Hedong. The people in Hedong got benefits, and the people in other places also wanted it.
In fact, this era has indeed reached a point in time when the tax system in ancient China underwent major changes.
The taxation system in ancient China, during the Han, Wei and Jin dynasties, was divided into two types: rent and tax. Rent refers to land tax, and tax refers to Dingkou silver. In addition, people must also perform corvee and military service.
From the Southern and Northern Dynasties to the Sui and Tang Dynasties, due to the rise of the government army system, there was no need to recruit a large number of peasant soldiers for battle, so the tax system became a rent-and-tax system.
As the saying goes, if there is land, there will be rent, if there is a body, there will be mediocrity, and if there is a household, there will be regulation. When combined, it means land tax, tinkou silver, corvee, etc.
Of course, this is just a superficial understanding, and there are many more truths in it.
As for the rent-yongtiao system, in the later period of Emperor Gaozong of the Tang Dynasty, when the military system gradually collapsed, it began to become difficult to collect.
This thing is based on population and emphasizes personal control and the government's ability to inhibit land annexation.
Once the government fails to restrain annexation and landless people flee in large numbers, the rent cannot be collected, and then it will be equally distributed to the neighbors who can still barely survive. In the end, everyone can only escape by fleeing.
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Therefore, during the Tianbao period, the household tax, which collected taxes based on acres of land, began to become important.
But in the middle and late Tang Dynasty, the household tax was no longer effective, and the country's financial resources were exhausted. So finally in the first year of Emperor Dezong's founding in the Tang Dynasty, the Two Tax Law was officially promulgated.
The so-called two taxes are levied twice a year in summer and autumn. The summer tax is collected in June and the autumn tax is collected in November.
But the most important change is that the original taxation of rent based on Dingkou has been changed to separate taxation based on wealth.
This is undoubtedly a huge improvement from the perspective of national taxation.
It avoids the problem that during the period of mediocrity, big households could easily pass on heavy corvee burdens to the poor.
Not only does it increase fiscal revenue, it also reduces the burden on poor people to a certain extent, simplifies the complexity of tax payments, and liberates productivity.
To sum up, the rich pay more taxes, and the poor pay less taxes. They pay taxes directly and do not need to pay grain, livestock, cloth, etc. in various ways.
It looks good, right? It is indeed very good. If it can be strictly implemented, of course it will be good.
But this ideal model, not to mention the Tang Dynasty, even the United States in later generations, where the tax police claimed to be the ceiling of federal combat effectiveness, could not achieve it.
Therefore, the Two Taxes Law of the Tang Dynasty was only implemented for less than 30 years before it basically fell apart. Officials at all levels took advantage of the fact that taxes could not be paid in kind, forcing the people to sell their output at a low price for money, and then exploited it again.
By the time of the Five Dynasties, the means became more abundant. In addition to the two taxes, each vassal town cleverly established its own name, making the people's lives even more miserable.
Moreover, the Two Taxes Law also has an impact that Zhang Qian doesn’t know whether to call it a drawback or not.
That is, the Two Taxes Law is based on the disintegration of the government and military system, and is a reflection of the central government's transition from strong intervention in land to little or even no intervention in land.
If Zhang Jian continues to implement the two tax laws, it will inevitably lead to Zhang Zhou being like the two Song Dynasties. Even if he wants to suppress land annexation, he will be unable to do so.
This also reflects on the country’s basic guarantee—force.
From the Han Dynasty to the early Tang Dynasty, this model of renting mediocrity was effectively implemented, which allowed the country to mobilize considerable force at any time from the Han Dynasty to the Sui and Tang Dynasties.
Sometimes, even after the regular army has finished fighting, the powerful locals can immediately provide considerable force. As long as the Central Plains court's appeal has not been lost, the country will not be in danger.
In the middle and late Tang Dynasty, after the collapse of the imperial military system, Xuanzong was forced to establish a military recruitment system, and then got rid of it, resulting in the independence of vassal towns.
After Huang Chao, the Tang Dynasty completely lost its foundation of military force, and the military force of the feudal towns further degenerated. They changed from a recruitment system to a military force in charge of everything, directly replacing the role of the state, using political power to guarantee force, and using force to protect political power.
That's why the warriors of the Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties were so able to fight because all the benefits of the country were given to them.
For a time, there was almost no peasant uprising internally, and foreign enemies could only look down upon them and treat them as disgraced grandsons.
But this thing has a big problem, because the warrior doesn't know how to govern the country at all.
And if the power to govern the country is handed over to civilian officials, the civilian officials will use various means to deprive the military of the control of the political power.
So they simply despise the literati and treat the country as a gang and run it as a mafia.
As a result, in the later Jin Dynasty, there was a total collapse because the people could not bear it anymore.
They either fled to the mountains, became gangsters in the swamps, or died in various natural and man-made disasters.
In fact, the Central Plains has been on the verge of total collapse since the late Zhu Liang Dynasty.
Was the Later Jin Dynasty defeated by the Khitan? No! They were defeated by poverty.
Regardless of this time and space, or in history, even if the Later Jin Dynasty did not have many cavalry, it could still defeat the Khitan in a fancy way.
But they ran out of money. They didn't even have the money to send 30,000 to 50,000 troops and fight for two or three months. The last money Sang Weihan got from Shi Chonggui was to make Yelu Deguang, the war god of the Later Jin Dynasty, transform into a camel god of war.
But the second time, there was no money at all, and the army was surrounded for two or three months. Not to mention sending reinforcements, even the troops stationed in Yedu began to starve.
It was indeed a magical era. The soldiers of the Central Plains imperial court were not defeated militarily by the countries beyond the Great Wall, but were defeated economically by the countries beyond the Great Wall.
This is the problem faced by Zhang Jian. Equalization of land and uneven land are secondary. The key point lies in the operating mechanism of the country.
If you accept the two-tax law, you will definitely not be able to strongly suppress mergers. Even if Zhang Yan can, it will collapse when his legs are stunned.
Moreover, the implementation of the Two Taxes Law without devaluing the status of warriors is destined to lead Zhang Zhou to the old path of not suppressing annexation + recruiting troops to guard the place. Then the story of Tang Xuanzong will be waiting for Zhang Xuan not far away.
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Fortunately, he died on the last day of the Kaiyuan period, and then his son entered the Tianbao period. Ten or twenty years later, the world was in chaos and a big change came.
If he is unlucky, he will become Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty and watch with his own eyes everything he has worked so hard to build be swept away by the torrent of history.
And it is almost impossible to go back to the rent-yong modulation, because the Central Plains is not the backward Hexi, and the productivity has already developed to this point.
From the Han Dynasty to the early Tang Dynasty, only two to three hundred acres of land could support a family. Now if we continue to develop, the time will come when seven, eight, three or four acres of land can support one person. The time will come when the handicraft industry will develop greatly, and the population will explode.
form of growth.
When the time comes when there are too many people and no land, and they have to bear the burden of mediocrity, well, the foundation for a popular uprising will be there.
Handicrafts and other industries have developed greatly, but the mediocre production model and the almost barter market have seriously hindered their development, which has also offended urban civilians and farmers in wealthy areas.
Everyone is getting poorer and poorer with the mediocre renting model, and eventually the mergers and acquisitions become more and more intense, and then there is another big move to cheer up.
Click! The Zhang Zhou he built has not even started to take off yet, it has returned directly to the end of the Tang Dynasty.
To put it simply, renting means that everyone lives in poverty together. The powerful people at the top are extremely wealthy, while the people below are struggling to survive. There is not much of a middle class, and the commodity economy is not developed.
As for the Two Tax Law, after its implementation in history, it was obviously more suitable for the further development of handicraft industry and commodity economy.
It broke the insurmountable gap between the wealthy and the poor during the Han Dynasty, and a large number of middle classes emerged. The prosperity of the Northern Song Dynasty largely reflected the increase in the middle class.
During the Qin and Han Dynasties, there were very few Sufeng families, and no strata could yet be formed. By the Tang Dynasty, an intermediate class began to appear that was rich but not noble, poor but not humble, and humble but not poor.
By the Song Dynasty, there were countless middle-aged people whose families had more than fifty thousand yuan. Houses with more than one hundred thousand yuan were everywhere in the capital. There were wealthy people in prefectures and counties, regardless of their size.
This is the result of the development of productive forces. Wealth has finally begun to flow into the homes of ordinary people in large quantities, and is no longer all occupied by the rich and powerful. This is a historical trend that no one can stop.
It won't work! Going against the wheel of history will definitely cause problems. If you insist on mediocrity, his reputation will be worse than that of Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty.
Zhang Gao groaned in pain, fell on the bed and stared at the roof without saying a word for a long time. Why do you know so much? If you don't understand, you won't worry about it. After I die, why don't I care about the flood?
After another long sigh, the door creaked open, and Queen Cao Yanxi walked in slowly.
She knew at a glance that Zhang Hao had encountered a problem, and she didn't say anything. She just walked over and sat down next to Zhang Hao silently, and put Zhang Hao's head on her plump thighs.
Zhang Yan took a deep breath of the fragrant smell of Cao Yanxi's body, turned his head with a grunt, found the most comfortable position, and continued to think.
Historically, the Northern Song Dynasty, which inherited the Five Dynasties, also inherited the two-tax system, so they did not suppress it, or they could not do anything to suppress mergers if they wanted to.
Therefore, for the sake of stability, there is only one way to go, and that is to completely stink the military people. After turning the military people into stinking shit, then use money to raise them like pigs, creating a situation where military expenditures account for the vast majority of the fiscal budget.
A sand sculpture military empire.
Thinking that the mace of the Jin soldier in the Song Army was about to hit Tianling Gai, and he would never start a fight without a reward, Zhang Xian felt a chill in his crotch.
Then in the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Hongwu used a compromise method. The people still implemented the two-tax law, but he gathered military personnel to form military households, and then implemented a system similar to renting and paying taxes in the military households to a certain extent.
Obviously, it failed in the end. The guards at the end of the Ming Dynasty were not as good as the garbage imperial army of the Song Dynasty, and the civilian force was completely useless.
I arrived in Qing Dynasty.
Huh!
Zhang Hao suddenly sat up. The Eight Banners system of the Qing Dynasty, how should I put it, is not corrupt. On the contrary, it is a perfect martial arts system that combines the military system of the Han and Tang Dynasties.
Although it cannot be compared with modern countries, it is by no means a decadent thing.
Some people will say that the Eight Banners Soldiers will still decay, and they will decay very quickly.
No! No! In fact, the Eight Banners' military force, the core of 10,000 or 20,000 people, has always maintained considerable combat effectiveness, but they are few and dare not pull them out to make a one-time deal.
The Eight Banners force of the Manchu Qing Dynasty did not finally disappear until Bali Bridge was killed and collapsed by the British and French forces.
Looking at the entire Manchu Qing Dynasty, from the entry of the Eight Banners to the attack on Zhungeer, the attack on Jinchuan and Jinchuan, the attack on Burma, and all the way to Bali Bridge, corruption is certain, but there is no complete corruption, such as the corruption of the Song Dynasty Forbidden Army and the Ming Dynasty Guards Station.
of.
This is a very remarkable achievement. Since the Eastern Han Dynasty was overthrown by force, the Central Plains Dynasty has never had such an army that had ups and downs throughout the entire dynasty but always had some combat effectiveness.
The craziness of the Eight Banners system lies not in its military structure, but in its political structure.
The extremely stupid non-intermarriage between Manchus and Han people, and the even more stupid bannerman system, were the main culprits in destroying them.
But even so, the Manchu Qing Dynasty was still the most stubborn among all the Central Plains dynasties. If they had not encountered the Western powers, Zhang Yan estimated that the Manchu Qing Dynasty could survive for 350 years, or even close to 400 years.
So what can you learn from the Eight Banners system?
Generous treatment, strict military selection mechanism, sense of honor as the master of the country, and the emperor's absolute control over them.
If we add a good competition mechanism and a system that is open to the outside world and absorbs new entrants.
Perhaps, I can use this system, with the pro-army as the upper three banners and the forbidden army as the lower five banners, and cooperate with the military examination system to recruit brave men from all over the world into the pro-army and the forbidden army.
The role of the Green Camp was played by soldiers from various prefectures and counties as well as united athletes and righteous knights from the people.
Then in the future, Zhang Zhou may be able to use athletes from Hexi and Longyou from Lianglan, Gansu and other states to form a team of pro-army and forbidden troops.
Then, with a complete military examination system, we can recruit brave men from all over the world to form an absolutely elite standing army of eight to one hundred thousand people.
At the same time, the competition mechanism should be improved so that if the next generation of pro-army and imperial guardsmen do not have qualified successors, they can be deposed.
In terms of political power, the imperial examination was used to select talents from all over the world and improve the civil service system.
From now on, in terms of military force under Zhang Zhou, the emperor shared power with his ministers, loyal troops, and imperial troops.
In terms of politics, you can share power with literati and officials.
It’s just that there are only so many benefits in the world, so no one can have enough!
Well, don't be afraid. Most of the benefits and power in the country are given to the civilian system, and the military system takes a smaller half. The rest can go out to reap the dividends of the vast world outside.
As for ordinary people, they will continue to use the two-tax law to liberalize productivity and promote the development of handicrafts and commodity economy.
There is a start! Zhang Yan is getting more and more excited. Although there are still many omissions in this idea, it can be gradually improved!
Mad! Thinking about it, Zhang Hao was stunned. He thought he was Li Erfeng, but he didn't expect that he was the fusion of Zhu Hongwu and Huang Taiji.
What the hell.
I will probably have to take leave tomorrow, and Tiger has been arrested again. In this cold wind, it is probably impossible to code on my mobile phone.