Early the next morning, the people mentioned in Liu Xin's "Secretariat" list were notified that they "will be reused" and need to meet Gao Pragmatic tonight. Although many people waiting did not know what this reuse meant.
Although they reuse the method, they still made preparations based on their own circumstances.
Gao pragmatically went to the Ministry of Household Affairs as usual and received the two visiting ministers from the Ministry of Personnel and the Ministry of War.
Yang Wei, the Minister of Civil Service, is here to ask about the pre-deposit system of official salaries for next year. The "pre-deposit system for official salaries for the coming year" is a new measure after Gao Pragmatic's "consolidation of financial power". However, in fact, similar practices have not existed before. It is just that Gao Pragmatic will
It has been institutionalized and standardized, and it has been added to the national fiscal budget system of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development.
Since the national fiscal budget system is a huge overall task, all ministries and agencies need to contact and negotiate with the Ministry of Household Affairs before the year to reach an agreement.
Otherwise, if you don't take the initiative to come and find me, it will be none of my business if your office doesn't have enough money in the coming year. Since my office has no losses, I don't care whether you like it or not.
Having said that, if the six bureaus, the Metropolitan Procuratorate, and the Dali Temple really don't have enough office funds, they will definitely be able to go to the emperor to complain. However, this will be embarrassing on the one hand, and it will also show the lack of ability of the officials
, everyone must not be happy for this scene to happen.
The Ministry of Personnel and the Ministry of War are the basis of the Pragmatic School, so you don't have to worry much about getting stuck when you come to Gao Pragmatic. However, the budgets of these two departments this year are a bit higher than in previous years, so you still have to come early to talk to Gao Pragmatic.
The reason why the expenditures of these two ministries have increased is because the Ministry of Human Resources and the Ministry of War are actually "harming" them.
Let’s talk about the Ministry of Household Affairs first. Since the Ministry of Household Affairs took over power and changed it to a system of four ministers, it officially became the “Big Household Department”. There were many more officials in the two departments and thirteen departments alone, and the overall staff of the Ministry of Household Affairs expanded by 40%. These officials
Although it belongs to the Ministry of Household Affairs, the responsibility for the "establishment work" of the world's officials lies with the Ministry of Personnel, and salary payments must be approved by the Ministry of Personnel first. Therefore, Yang Wei came to explain the situation to Gao Pragmatic.
Fortunately, the Thirteen Divisions of the Two Departments are quite different from the original provincial divisions. The biggest difference is that the employment of the Thirteen Divisions of the Two Departments has implemented a famous point of view of Gao Gong at that time: There are few Jinshi but more people, and those who have real talents will be promoted.
There are many people who are not good at writing, so you should use Juren more often.
This is of course a very pragmatic point of view. Chunwei only takes place once every three years (unless it is open to Enke). Although the number of people in the pilot examination is not fixed, there are usually only about 300 people at one time. On average, only 300 people can "become officials" every year.
One hundred people.
The Ming Dynasty is so vast. Those who have retired from official positions, those who have failed in political battles, those who have kept the rule, those who have lost their titles for some reason... all kinds of officials who have left their posts may exceed this number. What is the use of just relying on Jinshi?
The real significance of Jinshi is to become high-ranking officials and then stimulate the people's tendency to learn. However, the officials who really work at the grassroots level are actually the so-called "officials" in the Ming Dynasty. They are not in the "official" class.
But the problem also lies in this "official". In many places, the position of official is almost hereditary. Although this to some extent allows the family to have sufficient "experience" in supervising projects, it also
It will definitely cause a lot of disadvantages.
For example, a certain family is always responsible for the financial work of a certain county. No matter how the county officials are changed, they will never be able to deeply "reform" local ills. However, the family will become more and more powerful in the local area, covering the sky with one hand.
, misbehaving.
Therefore, Gao Gong had always intended to change this situation during his lifetime, but it was a pity that many of his reforms were just the beginning, or he put forward "guiding ideas" before he passed away.
As the successor to his mantle, Gao Pragmatic will naturally continue to push forward many reforms, but just like reforms in later generations, reforms will always move from shallow waters to deep waters.
When it comes to deep-water areas, there are deep-water areas. Any practice is constantly developing. New situations and new problems emerge one after another. No reform can be completed once and for all.
At present, the reform of the Practical School in Ming Dynasty has basically entered a critical period, a deep-water zone. The reason why some problems are difficult to advance and solve is because some are old problems left over by the system and mechanisms, and some are new problems that have emerged in the process of progress.
Some stem from ideological barriers, and some are constrained by the pattern of interests.
The problems encountered in the reform can only be solved by further reform. At this time, the two most critical points are: first, a clear-cut stand and a resolute attitude; second, appropriate measures and a measured advance and retreat.
Specifically, at a high-level gathering of the Practical School a few days ago, Gao Pingji mentioned the "four essentials" of the current Practical School reform: the direction must be correct, the measures must be precise, the advancement must be orderly, and the pace must be consistent.
The direction must be correct, which means that the reform of the Practical School must always remember its own purpose. The reform is not for the benefit of the Practical School and its officials, but to ensure that the country of Ming Dynasty can obtain benefits through reform, which is beneficial to the country and the people.
It should neither harm the public and enrich private interests, nor should it favor a certain class of people, farmers, industrialists, and merchants, leading to instability in the country and disordered governance.
Measures must be precise, which means that officials of the Practical School must be targeted in their specific work measures and be able to actually solve problems. Gao Pragmatic attaches great importance to this and believes that this is a great difference between the Practical School and the Heart School.
He emphasized at that time that officials who joined the Practical School must have the ability and attitude to solve problems. They should not just do Tai Chi when encountering problems, muddle along and pass the problems to their successors.
Advancement must be orderly, which means that the advancement of reform must be planned and not blind. Reform must know what to do first and what to do later, and what is done first must provide a foundation for what is done later.
He gave an example, just like now everyone knows the importance of customs duties, but without the previous switch, without Jinghua investing heavily in building seaports, without building a fleet to fight against pirates, and forcing coastal private merchants to give up smuggling into the country and become "good businessmen"
If so, then the money that can be collected in a year now may still be the same as the previous one hundred thousand taels. How could it have increased nearly thirty times?
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! The pace must be consistent, which means that the real school must maintain unity and work together when implementing policies, rather than arguing with each other and holding back each other.
This seems a bit like Gao Pragmatic's desire to establish personal authority, but in fact his starting point is really not this. When the entire faction unites to do something, other factions other than the Heart School or non-faction officials even hold different opinions.
, and must be considered carefully.
Even the Xin School is usually not willing to have a fierce conflict with the Real School. This was very obvious during the period when Shen Shixing was in power. Of course, after Wang Xijue returned to Beijing, the style of the Xin School tended to become increasingly hardened.
But it hasn't completely changed.
Closer to home, except for the two assistant ministers and the chief and deputy chief officers of each department in the two departments and thirteen divisions, the rest of the officials who are specifically responsible for handling affairs are all filled by alternate officials with judicial status. They are basically junior officials of the eighth or ninth grade.
Although the number of these officials is large, their salaries are not high. When the officials come to Gao Jingshi for discussion, it can only be regarded as a formality. After all, it is impossible for the organization established by Gao Jingshi to ignore his salary.
The situation at the Ministry of War is a bit more troublesome, because compared to last year and this year, their financial budget for next year has increased a lot. Liang Menglong personally brought three of the four ministers with him, so that the three
The Minister explained separately that the Minister of Rongzheng did not need to come, because the production and construction corps in Beijing was now responsible for providing money and effort, and the Ministry of Household Affairs had no involvement in that matter.
The Ministry of War came to discuss the budget, and the specifications were very high and comprehensive. But in the final analysis, the reason for the increase in spending was mainly due to three aspects that Gao Pragmatic had already predicted.
The first aspect is, of course, pre-war reserves. The Ming Dynasty has made it clear that it wants to destroy the residual Yuan in one fell swoop. This has been going on for several years. Due to the previous emperor's firm attitude and excessive use of force, the Northwest Rebellion even broke out.
However, after Gao Pragmatic put down the rebellion, the emperor simply gave him the financial work. Let him do the finance, of course, not to let him veto the national policy, but to allow him to better implement the national policy.
In the Yongle Dynasty in the past, when Chengzu's Five Expeditions to Mobei, such a strong national power still had to carry out pre-war reserves, let alone now? What's more, the purpose of the Ming Dynasty this time was not to expel the Chahar Mongols, but to directly take over the pot.
, which requires more reserve power.
Although there were already firearms troops during the Yongle Dynasty, the firearms at that time were not comparable to those of today, and the proportion of firearms troops in the army was also not comparable, so the consumption was naturally even more incomparable.
Another important point is that since Anda paid tribute, the Ming Dynasty has purchased more and more war horses from Tumote, and the imperial court’s stock of war horses has increased year by year. The consumption of war horses is different from that of slave horses. Non-wartime food
Although you don’t need to feed concentrated feed all the time, you still need to feed some every now and then to avoid losing weight or deteriorating your physical condition.
However, for Daming, there is a more troublesome thing: Although concentrated feed is expensive, if you eat grass, you will also need more horse farms - the former can be solved with money, but the latter is a bigger problem.
Because there are not many horse farms in Daming.
If the Nine Borders were just like before, with a total of only tens of thousands of cavalry, then the pressure on the grassland would not be too great, and they would basically be able to get by. But the current situation is no longer what it was back then. After eighteen years of tribute, the Nine Borders of the Ming Dynasty
There are almost hundreds of thousands of cavalry in the country, and the stock of war horses is as high as more than 300,000. What horse farm can withstand it?
Even if Gao pragmatically captured Daning last time and obtained part of the racecourse outside the pass, and then obtained the Liaohe Hetao racecourse after the Battle of Southern Liaoning, he still could not afford to supply more than 300,000 war horses - let alone all the cavalry.
Put it in these two places!
As a result, the gap in feed increasingly became a headache for the imperial court. It was not until Gao Jingjing promoted corn in Liaodong and succeeded that he finally saw a solution.
But in this case, the problem has turned back. The planting of corn is not a military camp, but a call for local war-torn refugees and ordinary people to plant it. A large part of it is obtained from land reclamation. According to the policy given by Gao Pragmatic at the time,
The income from land reclamation belongs to the person who reclaims the land and is exempt from taxes for three years.
In other words, although the court could use corn to feed horses, and corn itself was extremely suitable for feeding horses, all of this required money and had to be purchased from the owner of the corn field.
The three-year tax exemption period for most corn fields has not yet passed. If the Ministry of War wants to feed the horses with corn, it will have to allocate more money. The Ministry of War itself has little financial power left, so everything has to go to the Ministry of Household Affairs.
Pay the bill.
The money was pragmatic and he didn't intend to save it, but after looking at the price, he still frowned. Later, he made a suggestion, that is, the Ministry of War came forward to suggest that the emperor issue an edict to Liaodong, requiring Liaodong to open up more corn fields.
Anyway, there are too many saline-alkali lands in Liaodong, and the yield of grain grown in those lands is really daunting. Although the advancement of rice in Hokkaido is accelerating, the cultivation of refined grains such as rice is more difficult, and it is not as easy to promote as corn.
In addition to Liaodong, he also suggested that all northern regions can use idle land to grow corn, and even some places that are not idle land but have unsatisfactory wheat yields can also be replanted.
According to his idea, although the current price of corn is cheaper than rice and wheat, it is only so cheap that it should still take up the "fresh food". As long as we continue to expand corn planting and wait for the total output to increase, the price of this thing will definitely increase.
It will decline accordingly and become a grain product whose commercial properties are not as important as maintaining stability.
Originally, he did not introduce corn to improve the taste of the people of the Ming Dynasty. He introduced it as a life-saving food during the Little Ice Age. The price of this stuff is almost as high as that of rice. How can I get rid of wheat?
When the Ministry of War saw that he had approved the payment, they naturally responded loudly to his suggestion. Liang Menglong immediately said that he would write a memorial when he returned to the Yamen and must patiently persuade the emperor.
The second place to spend money is the increase in training funds. Gao Pragmatic knows this well, because in detail, he proposed it when he was at the Ministry of War.
Muskets and artillery are no better than swords, and they are not something that some people are born with knowing how to kill. Although comparatively speaking, the time required to train a qualified musketeer is much shorter than training a swordsman, but muskets
The characteristics of the gunpowder are that it consumes gunpowder, and the barrel itself is also worn, so the cost of training is far more than that of the cold weapon army.
But it definitely won’t work without training. For someone who doesn’t know how to use firearms, no matter how good the gun is, it’s just like taking a fire stick on the battlefield. So what’s the Wanli II style? Just take out the previous three-eyed blunderbuss.
Wouldn't it be more appropriate to use it? It's just about hitting people.
So although the money was quite large, with the incremental portion alone reaching more than 200,000 taels, Gao Pragmatic signed and pledged it without saying a word.
The last sum of money was a little unexpected: the Ministry of War actually "discovered its conscience" and believed that the life of the frontier troops was too difficult, so it planned to give the frontier troops a slight increase in pay - really just "a little", because the average person only received an increase of about RMB 5 per year.
Money.
However, Gao Pragmatic hesitated this time. The reason is not complicated: How many soldiers are there in Jiubian now? Nearly 900,000. Each person will get five more silver coins a year, which is 450,000 taels of silver.
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