The class division of scholars, farmers, industry and merchants has always been maintained by aristocratic families in order to show their superior status. Even the rulers of all dynasties have also maintained this division.
"What you dear friends are right is true. It is indeed inappropriate for the heirs of businessmen to participate in the imperial examination." Li Shimin said.
Ma Zhou said: "Your Majesty, the matter of collecting commercial taxes was proposed by the Marquis of Jingyang County. It is better to listen to the opinions of the Marquis of Jingyang County."
The Ministry of Commerce is a new department. Although it is tied with the Sixth Department, it cannot compare with the Sixth Department.
The six ministries all have many things to manage, but the Ministry of Commerce only collects commercial taxes, which is of little significance, and there is a risk of being banned at any time.
As the first minister of the Ministry of Commerce, as long as the Ministry of Commerce can continue to exist, he will definitely leave his name in history. Naturally, he wants to make some achievements and make the Ministry of Commerce irreplaceable.
Li Shimin pondered for a while and said: "Withdraw from the court, Fang Xuanling, Li Jing... follow me to Ganlu Hall to discuss matters."
…
Lin Xuan felt a little strange that Li Shimin suddenly summoned him.
Could it be that Li Shimin knew that the Cui family was about to deliver the money and came to him to ask for money?
But when he came to Ganlu Hall and saw that in addition to Li Shimin, Fang Xuanling, Changsun Wuji, Li Jing and more than a dozen important officials in the court were there, Lin Xuan gave up this idea.
"I see your Majesty." Lin Xuan bowed and saluted.
Li Shimin waved his hand and said, "I called you here because I want to hear your opinion on something."
Li Shimin explained Ma Zhou's proposal and asked: "The commercial tax collection was originally proposed by you. Tell me what you think."
"Your Majesty, I think what Shangshu Ma said makes sense. Businessmen pay taxes just like people pay taxes. They contribute their strength to the Tang Dynasty. Naturally, they should not be treated differently. They should enjoy the same treatment as ordinary people." Lin Xuan
said.
Changsun Wuji said: "If businessmen are not engaged in production, if they are like ordinary people, a large number of people will follow suit. As a result, a large number of fields will be abandoned. Who will plant the fields?"
Lin Xuan said disdainfully: "There is no idle land all over the world, and farmers are still starving to death. Since ancient times, except during times of war, when have fields been left uncultivated?"
Some people went to do business, and the empty fields were naturally cultivated. People in ancient times were very hardworking. They were only worried about not having enough fields, so how could they let the fields be abandoned.
"There is no idle land in the world, and farmers are still starving to death." Li Shimin praised: "Well, there is no idle land in the world, and farmers are still starving to death. What I did is not good enough."
"Uh." Lin Xuan finally realized that this poem was ironic.
Fang Xuanling said with a smile: "I have always heard that the Marquis of Jingyang County is extraordinary in literary talent, and I am not exaggerating. We only allow the heirs of businessmen to serve as officials, so how can we guarantee integrity?"
How to ensure integrity? Isn't it because we are afraid that businessmen will take advantage of their positions to commit corruption after becoming officials?
But in ancient times, businessmen and their heirs were not allowed to be officials, but there were fewer corrupt officials?
Although there are many honest officials recorded in history books, how many truly honest officials were there in such a long historical span?
Zhang Juzheng is famous, right? But his life is very extravagant. In order to lead troops to suppress the Japanese, Qi Jiguang had to give gifts to Zhang Juzheng to curry favor with him.
Therefore, the famous officials recorded in history books do not mean that they are upright officials.
As for officials doing business, Lin Xuan is even more hesitant.
If nothing else, just take the people sitting here as an example, which one doesn’t have any business?
Even an upright official like Fang Xuanling and Wei Zheng doesn't have many shops at home?
Speaking of which, we have to talk about the salaries of officials in the Tang Dynasty.
In the early Tang Dynasty, officials' salaries mainly consisted of three parts, food, land and salary.
Take Wei Zheng as an example. He is now Minister Youcheng. He can receive 260 shi of grain per year and a monthly salary of 3,500 fen. Plus food and miscellaneous expenses of 700 fen, a total of 4,200 fen.
That’s four dollars more.
In the Tang Dynasty, one stone cost about 80 kilograms, and two hundred and sixty shi was just over two thousand kilograms, which was only a dozen guan when converted into money.
In other words, Wei Zheng's salary plus public grain is only about 60 guan a year. Including the Duke's food, Wei Zheng's annual income will not exceed 300 guan at most.
As a prince, Wei Zheng's expenses were not small even if he was frugal.
Do you need a horse-drawn carriage for traveling?
Keeping several horses at home costs a lot for a year, as does food and drink for the family and for the servants.
There is always something that needs repairing in a house all year round, right?
If all the mess adds up, there won't be much left at the end of the year.
If there is no other income, what is the use of favors? What is the use of children getting married?
That's why honest officials in ancient times seemed so rare.
"To avoid this situation, we can only strictly restrict officials and their immediate family members from doing business, and implement a system of official transfer," Lin Xuan said.
Don't underestimate the wisdom of the ancients. Officials of later generations and their immediate family members were not allowed to do business. This was already used in the Han Dynasty.
Not only that, starting from the Qin and Han Dynasties, the appointment of local officials was based on the official transfer system, that is, local officials were not allowed to serve as officials in their place of origin and could not serve in one place for a long time.
These methods are still in use more than a thousand years later, which shows that they are very advanced.
Although some people still take advantage of loopholes in the rules to allow other relatives or sponsors to do business.
This kind of thing cannot be avoided even in later generations, let alone in ancient times.
No rules can be perfect and can only be constrained as much as possible.
The Tang Dynasty did not implement this policy thoroughly. Although the evaluation of officials in the Tang Dynasty was very strict, there was a problem.
For example, there are three evaluations in the evaluation: excellent or poor. Excellent representatives can be promoted; good representatives can continue to hold the same position if they do well; poor representatives can do poorly and will be demoted or held accountable.
If someone bribes the evaluation officials and gets good evaluations, they will be re-elected in the same place.
Many people will definitely think, since they have bribed the evaluation officials, why not get excellent evaluations?
Being excellent means getting promoted, and once you get promoted, you have to change places. For officials who are interested in corruption, changing places means starting over, and it does not serve their interests.
In addition, the evaluation of promoted officials must be handed over to the emperor for approval and will be verified again. It is not that simple.
After thinking about it for a moment, Fang Xuanling understood Lin Xuan's intention and said with a smile: "Can the Marquis of Jingyang County tell you in detail?"
He said this to ask Lin Xuan to explain to others.
"Any local official cannot serve in his or her place of origin. The farther away the official is, the farther away he or she is. After serving for three years, he must change places and is not allowed to be re-elected." Lin Xuan said slowly.
Li Shimin narrowed his eyes and said nothing.
Attention is easy to pay attention to, but it is not realistic and the resistance to implementation is too great.
This system existed in the Qin and Han Dynasties. With Li Shimin's wisdom, how could he not know that by doing this, the court's control over the local area would be greatly enhanced.
However, in some places, the aristocratic families have been operating for too long, and other officials will not be able to have fun there, and may even be won over by the aristocratic families.
It's not convenient for him to talk about this now.
After Lin Xuan finished speaking, he saw that everyone else looked confused and no one agreed, so he knew there must be some reason that he didn't know.
Lin Xuan smiled bitterly in his heart, thinking about it, the system that existed during the Qin and Han Dynasties was not implemented thoroughly in the Tang Dynasty, but it was not completely abandoned.
He thought it was Li Shimin and the others who didn't know the benefits of this system, but now that he thought about it, he thought it was too simple.
"This matter needs to be carefully considered. We will discuss it later. You can go down first." Li Shimin said.