Chapter 289 Three Triumphs (10) A Smooth Conspiracy
Gao Jingshi's above-mentioned plan was easy to explain to the emperor because it was difficult for the emperor to come into contact with the real folk scene. As long as Gao Jingshi explained the obvious truth to him, he could make a decision after weighing the pros and cons.
However, as long as Gao Pragmatic's plans are announced, officials will be able to see through the chief minister's intentions at a glance.
Obviously, no matter how dedicated Gao Jingshi is to serving the people, it does not prevent officials from complaining about his measure. Indeed, according to Gao Jingshi's plan, not only will the so-called "virtuous gentlemen" not be included in this plan,
Benefits will be damaged, and you may even gain a lot from it, but as long as everyone thinks more deeply...
The families of the officials are obviously known as "virtuous gentlemen" in the local area, but once you think about this matter carefully, it will inevitably lead to two kinds of doubts about the profound meaning of Gao Pragmatism:
First, although the qualifications of these "virtuous gentlemen" are determined by how much they donate for the canal renovation plan, Gao Yuanfu did not say that the "responsibility" of these "virtuous gentlemen" will be allocated entirely based on the ranking of donations.
Proportion of "demolition and reconstruction".
For example, member A under the jurisdiction of a certain upper county donates 1,000 taels, and member B under the jurisdiction of a certain lower county donates 800 taels. Logically speaking, if member A donates more, then the "demolition and reconstruction" area he can be responsible for should be longer than that of member B.
.
However, although the county where Yuanwai A is located is Shangxian, it may be the administrative seat of a certain government. As a result, there are four or five rich local Yuanwai masters who have donated thousands of taels, and the administrative county usually has a large population and a prosperous economy.
However, the area is not large, so the actual demolition and reconstruction area available to members outside A is not very long.
On the contrary, Yi Yuanwai is just a lower county. The county has a large area but a relatively sparse population. There are no other large households in the county that can compare with Yi Yuanwai. Therefore, Yi Yuanwai might even be able to monopolize the demolition and reconstruction of this county.
Responsibility.
I would like to ask, who earns more, Member A or Member B?
The answer is probably...hard to say.
Difficult to say is right. Because "difficult to say" means uncertainty, and in the actual use of power, uncertainty means that officials who allocate demolition and reconstruction sites have some discretion.
So, can these officials with discretionary power guarantee "fair" distribution? In fact, certainly not, but one thing can be guaranteed, that is, the distribution power of these officials comes from Gao Pragmatism, so in the final analysis, Gao Pragmatism has the final decision-making power.
In other words, "virtuous gentlemen" can only donate money to buy a qualification to participate in making money, and the person who specifically determines the amount of their income is still highly pragmatic.
This brings about a very real problem: if you want to make money, donate money to the court first; if you want to make more, you must satisfy Gao Pragmatic.
But, how can we satisfy Gao Yuanfu? I don’t know. At least from the current point of view, Gao Yuanfu seems to be too rich, so that he himself has no interest in corruption, bribery, etc. So normally, I think
To satisfy Gao Yuanfu, I am afraid we can only start from the political level.
Well, to put it bluntly, you, the "virtuous gentleman", must side with Gao Yuanfu politically. Of course, it is not only you, but also the family representatives of your family who are currently working hard in the officialdom.
You see, after analyzing the situation at this point, it is very clear: because of family interests, the officials along the canal may have to politically side with Gao Yuanfu, or the real school represented by Gao Yuanfu.
The capital, Beizhili, Shandong, and Henan (this province is not a canal area, but is a water control area because of its connected water system) and other places were originally areas deeply controlled by the Practical School. Politically, it was logical for Gao Yuanfu to side with him. There is nothing to say.
The distribution of interests within political groups.
However, from the south of Yanzhou Prefecture, it enters Southern Zhili, and all the way to Nanjing is the scope of Southern Zhili. In addition, the imperial edict only mentions "along the canal" and does not say that this governance does not include the section from Nanjing to Hangzhou. In other words,
Zhejiang may also be included in the scope of this canal management plan.
As a result, South Zhili and Zhejiang, the two strongest bases of the Heart School, will be obviously penetrated by the Real School. The worst thing is that these two places - especially the cities along the canal, have been
Prosperity. And the economic level determines the behavior pattern. Therefore, these areas have always had a strong business atmosphere and are more likely to fall into the excessive pursuit of money.
In short, the current situation is that Gao Pragmatic has clearly put the interests in front of them. Now they only need to weigh one thing: kneel or not?
If you kneel, you will benefit on the spot, and you can also rely on more prosperous commercial real estate to obtain more benefits in the future; if you don't kneel, you will lose this opportunity to make money, and you will even have to watch other people who are willing to kneel make money in the future.
Although he is full of money, he is marginalized in this change of wealth redistribution, and his family situation is declining day by day.
Obviously, Gao Pragmatic's plan is to bet that they are unwilling not to kneel, but have to kneel, and dare not not kneel!
It's too cruel, it's really too cruel. It's really like "if you don't kneel down, there will be people crying and begging to kneel down."
Why don't they dare not kneel? As I said a long time ago, although the imperial examination system gave students from poor families a clear channel for class advancement and greatly reduced the difficulty of ruling the court, in fact, students from poor families still have far more trouble than those who want to get ahead.
Students who already have political and economic resources have an even greater difficulty—much more!
First of all, the imperial examinations in the Ming Dynasty were extremely competitive, which means that if you want to get good results, unless you are really a genius, you almost have to study full-time. You are a poor student, your family's financial conditions are really enough to support you.
Do you study hard in the cold years without working?
What's more, as mentioned before, most of the Ming Dynasty's candidates for the imperial examination were in their thirties, and at that time, the children of ordinary families were already doing a lot of work within their capabilities by the age of several years. In other words, you need more than "
"Ten years of cold weather" is likely to be twenty or even thirty years.
If you come from a poor family, can your family really have such financial strength? Well, even if you say "a poor family does not necessarily mean a poor farmer", it is possible that you still have a small fortune. Then there are other problems, such as unequal educational resources.
Students from disadvantaged backgrounds often come from remote areas or rural areas, and educational resources, both at home and abroad, have naturally been concentrated in cities, especially developed big cities, both in ancient and modern times. Therefore, students from disadvantaged backgrounds will not be able to compete with students from wealthy families in terms of their starting level in receiving education.
Let’s take the Gao family as an example. The Gao family is a “high-ranking official”, and they have elementary education at home. The elders in the family can teach their children and can afford the guidance of famous teachers. But even so, Gao Gong only studied in his hometown of Xinzheng in his early years.
He studied and later went to Kaifeng until he passed the Jinshi examination.
Gao pragmatism was special. When his family reached the age of enlightenment, he met Gao Gong and was forced to resign and return to his hometown. Therefore, he personally enlightened him and taught him how to read. Later, he was especially favored by Gao Gong because of his "genius", so he took him directly with him when he returned to Beijing.
After the capital city continued to give personal guidance for a period of time, he betrayed his old face and invited Guo Pu to be a pragmatic teacher...
In short, during a highly pragmatic academic career, the educational resources are at their peak, which are not comparable to those of ordinary students from poor families.
What does the above mean? It means that although the imperial examination may be relatively fair, if you are a powerful person and come from a plutocratic family, the educational resources you receive must be much higher than ordinary people, and your starting point may be higher than the peak of ordinary people.
Let’s talk about the Gao family. The Gao family has a lot of people in Gao Jingshi’s generation, and among them the least able to read can still become a scholar, and those who can read a little bit can be a master of civil education. Why?
?Of course it’s because there are enough educational resources. If you listen to a little bit about ethnic studies, some people will be able to get the status of a scholar or even a scholar that is difficult to achieve in their lifetime.
Then we talk about "advancing". Even if you pass the Jinshi exam, it only means that you have obtained the ticket to the officialdom. It does not mean that you will be able to rise to the top in this life.
As I have said many times before, the game in the Ming Dynasty officialdom often involved high-ranking officials who were teachers fighting against rival factions. They would first send their disciples to impeach the emperor, and then see how the emperor and the other party reacted.
This is often a "bet on life" behavior for students, because there is no guarantee of how the emperor will react - if the emperor himself wants to deal with the other party, then you, a newly minted officialdom, can take some credit and become a teacher.
The rewards are ordinary recommendations and random rewards from the emperor to obtain a jump.
But if the emperor has no such intention and chooses to protect the person your teacher wants to attack, then there is a high probability that you will be convicted in the name of "attacking the minister" or "rebellion without status". What will be the result? To put it mildly
It's not like being "transferred to foreign posts", the bigger one is "demoted to three levels and transferred to foreign posts", the bigger one is "dismissed as a civilian", the bigger one... In short, the crime is not capped, and you can even be beaten to death with a cane on the spot. That's not the case.
No chance to taste it.
You see, this is the reality of officialdom that poor people with little background have to face.
So, what if there is a backing? Please refer to the pragmatic official resume of Shangzhuguo, Taifu, Prince Taishi, Grand Bachelor of Zhongji Palace, Shangshu of the Ministry of Revenue, and Nanning Hou Gao, who is only 38 years old.
Ah, of course, Gao Pragmatic's resume is so amazing. In addition to having a strong backing, his performance in office is also excellent. But it still must be said that if he did not have such a strong backing, at least his official career would not be so smooth.
Back to the canal project. It is precisely because Gao Pragmatic's move is undoubtedly a conspiracy in the officialdom that many people are angry. However, injustice is injustice, and everyone still knows very well that they should kneel down.
You still have to kneel down. After all, as the old saying goes, if you have money, don’t make a bastard.
In the speechless silence of both the government and the opposition, the imperial edict concerning arrangements for the canal project was successfully issued. The only...oh no, the only surprise came from the Ministry of Industry and the Beijing Production and Construction Corps.
What the Ministry of Works means is that the Ministry of Works has always taken the lead in river engineering, so there should be no surprise this time. Even if Yuan Fu wants to personally take charge of this, they dare not say much, but at least the Ministry of Works should still be the main management agency.
The Production and Construction Corps is simple. Their appeal is very direct: to stabilize the world, it is not appropriate to use excessive corvee services. The Production and Construction Corps is willing to do hard work for the court - to put it bluntly, this is the job we want to take.
Of course, due to the highly pragmatic reforms, although the price of the work taken over by the Production and Construction Corps from the imperial court was not high, it still required a reasonable profit.
Gao Pragmatic readily agreed to the request of the Ministry of Industry and the Production and Construction Corps, which was within the rules.
----------
Thank you to the book friend "Single Rider Zhao Bixin" for your support of 18 monthly tickets, thank you!
Thank you to the book friend "The Boy Next Door 1" for your support of 12 monthly tickets, thank you!
Thank you to the book friend "Swooping Brick" for your support of 10 monthly tickets, thank you!
Thanks to book friend "milan123" for your support of 8 monthly tickets, thank you!
Thanks to book friend "doni", "book friend 20170107012220447", "book friend 20231213021846742", "book friend 20220615073723462", "heaven huwz", "soviet2003", "listen to the wind and snow", "fire and blazing phoenix"
Monthly ticket support, thank you!
PS: I wish all children and adults a happy Children’s Day (#^.^#)