Ming Dynasty: Teaching The Prince Dragon-Slaying Skills At The Beginning

Chapter 341: The Imperial Power Will Not Go To The Countryside? Downloaded, But Not Completely Downl

“Since we don’t have enough manpower, how about adding more School Disciple people?!!”

King Yan Zhu Di was a little dissatisfied with Qi Dao. Since it was a matter of manpower, it would be better to add more School Disciple men.

As long as enough manpower is added and the ratio of officials to civilians is increased, even the power of townships, towns, villages, and li can be firmly in his hands, or in the hands of the court.

Yan Changqing nodded, indicating that this was a good idea, then looked at Zhu Di and asked:

"This method is very good. As long as the ratio of officials to citizens is increased, the magistrate's power over the local area can be improved.

"But where do the money, food, supplies, salaries, etc. come from for these additional personnel?!!"

"This is not a problem for one or two counties, but a problem for more than a thousand counties throughout the Ming Dynasty!!!"

"Although a low-level subordinate official's expenditure on money, food, materials, and salary is very small, a low-level subordinate official's expenditure on money, food, materials, and salary is very small.

"Multiply this by the number of additional low-level subordinates a county magistrate needs in order to have strong local dominance."

"Finally, multiply it by the more than a thousand counties in the Ming Dynasty. How much will the final expenditure on money, food, materials, and salaries be?!!"

"Does His Highness Prince Yan think that the current annual income of the imperial court can afford this additional support in terms of money, food, materials, and salary?!!"

Zhu Di was immediately speechless, and the hero was stumped by a penny.

As the fake prince who supervises the country and assists in government affairs, he also sat in on the six-department report at the end of last year.

Although there was a slight surplus in the annual revenue last year, the surplus part of the salary itself should be used to reserve expenditures for dealing with any natural or man-made disasters that may occur.

It is impossible to say that it will be used to support more officials and subordinates of the imperial court in terms of money, food, materials, and salary expenditures.

Looking at Yan King Zhu Di who fell silent, Yan Changqing knew that he had figured out the key.

Whether the imperial court could rule the local areas, or whether the imperial power could be transferred to the countryside, was often debated in Yan Changqing's previous life.

Some people think that imperial power cannot go to the countryside, while others think that imperial power can go to the countryside.

Yan Changqing’s view on this is that since the Qin system of prefectures and counties, the imperial power has been able to go to the countryside, but the imperial power has not completely gone to the countryside!!!

Let’s first talk about the reasons why the imperial power can go to the countryside. First of all, the more detailed and trivial administrative divisions below the county level, such as townships, towns, villages, and li, are themselves a manifestation of the will of the imperial power!!!

Secondly, like the township system in the Han and Tang Dynasties, the Baojia system in the Song and Yuan Dynasties, and the household allowance system mainly implemented in the early Ming Dynasty, this is an extension of imperial power and can involve everyone!!!

The best example of this is taxes and corvee!!!

The taxes that should be collected from the lower class people can be collected from the heads of every lower class people.

All kinds of labor that should be performed by the people at the bottom can also be performed by every common person who should perform them.

Whether it is taxes or corvee, the people at the bottom can implement it according to the will of the court.

How could this not be a manifestation of the imperial court’s ruling power?!!

How could this not be a reflection of imperial power going to the countryside?!!

Therefore, in terms of whether the imperial power can go to the countryside, if the imperial power is willing, there is no doubt that it can and has the ability to go to the countryside.

As long as the ruler's will is strong enough, let alone the imperial power going to the countryside, there will be no problem even if the imperial power goes to the village!!!

For example, Emperor Ying Zheng and Emperor Yang Guang of the Sui Dynasty, both of them were able to recruit millions of civilians!!!

Where did the millions of civilians come from?!!

Naturally, they come from townships, towns, villages, and lili.

For the two of them, if one recruits millions of civilians, not to mention the imperial power going to the countryside, the imperial power will even bring the entire village to you!!!

However, the imperial power can go to the countryside, and the imperial power has the ability to go to the countryside, but this does not mean that the imperial power is willing to go to the countryside in an all-round way.

In addition to taxes, which are related to the annual income of the court, and corvee, which is related to national construction, these two types of power must be implemented on every common person at the bottom.

In other aspects, the power of the imperial court was rarely directly implemented at the rural level.

One is because of inconvenient transportation.

For example, during the Hongwu period in the early Ming Dynasty, a policy directive was issued, except for particularly urgent government orders.

According to the normal process, a government order is issued from the highest level, the six central ministries of the imperial court, to the lowest level, county level, and it takes at least one to three months!!!

After being distributed to the county level, can it be continued to be distributed to townships, towns, or even villages?!!

Yes, but it will either take time or money!!!

Most of the roads in this era, especially the roads in townships, towns, villages, and brigades, became roads only when more people took them.

Most of the private roads like this are inaccessible to vehicles and horses, and can only be entered on foot by manpower.

And the roads in one or two townships, towns, villages, and li are like this, but the roads in more than 80% of the townships, towns, villages, and li are like this!

If we want to actually send government orders to townships, towns, villages, and li, we must rely on three or five subordinate officials to spend a lot of time traveling to dozens of townships, 180 towns, and 1,000 to 800 villages and li in the county. .

Either hire a large number of additional temporary workers and visit dozens of townships, towns, and villages in the county at the same time. This way the efficiency will be much faster, but it will cost extra money!

Second, management costs are too high.

In this era, the Ministry of Household Affairs allocated funds to provinces, prefectures, prefectures, and counties, and the annual administrative expenses of each level of department were fixed.

As mentioned just now, hiring a large number of temporary workers to issue government orders to townships, towns, villages, and li, such expenses are not included in the annual administrative expenses of the county government.

If the department head spends all the expenses for this matter in advance, either the department head will use his own salary to pay for it, or he will figure out how to make money.

The basic salary offered by Zhu Yuanzhang to officials was very low [it could only meet the daily needs of the ten families of officials and Kang].

If they have to pay back their salaries due to hiring a large number of additional temporary workers, then these officials will really not be able to survive.

And even if you really rely on three or five subordinates to spend a lot of time, go into the township, town, village, and li.

In this era when anyone who is literate can be called a scholar, policy directives are posted in villages, towns, and villages and there are very few people who can understand them.

If people from the government were to carry out propaganda and explanations in detail to the people in townships, towns, villages and boroughs, even more manpower and material resources would be consumed.

Not to mention that Lao Zhu is stingy, even if Lao Zhu is not stingy, according to the current annual revenue of the Ming Dynasty, it is very realistic that it cannot support this expenditure.

It can be said that after the imperial court's dominance has fallen to the county level, if you want to ensure the relative imperial dominance, at each level below, the human, material, financial and other resources that need to be consumed are almost multiplied. .

Moreover, the normal county government is also very busy. A small county may be a hundred and eighty miles away, and a large county may be hundreds or thousands of miles away.

All matters within this county, whether it is criminal trial and settlement, taxation and finance, or admonishing farmers and mulberry trees, leading people to dredge rivers, or people's livelihood, etc.

Basically all these matters are handled by the county magistrate himself. At most, the county magistrate and county registrar can help share the burden.

But even so, the work of ten is still astonishingly large.

Therefore, after the imperial decree is issued to the county level, the county magistrate does not have so much time and energy to issue the decree to the township, town, village, and li levels.

Therefore, the county magistrate usually posts it at the public notice office of the county seat, and then summons the heads of the townships, town chiefs, etc. to give a brief explanation and then ends.

As for whether the township head and town head would later report the matter to the village head and the district chief, and whether the village head and district chief would report it to every common person, the county magistrate was not sure and was too lazy to confirm.

Anyway, if the people in any township, town, village, or district cause trouble because they do not understand the government decrees, the county magistrate will directly go to the head of the township, town, village, or district to hold them accountable.

Therefore, if the people in the townships, towns, villages, and bureaus do not go to the city to read the public notice [then the township heads, town chiefs, gan chiefs, and ley chiefs are not careful enough to account for the people in those townships, towns, villages, and boroughs.

Then it is normal for the people in those townships, towns, villages and comrades not to know about the changes in the imperial decree for several years.

The third reason is because of the local clan system.

There is a saying: "The subordinate staff is made of iron, and the official is made of water."

There are local clans below the county level, and local clans are divided into two types. One is the traditional local clan power formed by living together on a large scale with the same surname.

The other type does not necessarily involve large groups of people with the same surname living together. This group of people may have different surnames.

But they all attached themselves to a certain prestigious squire and formed a powerful local clan force.

And if there is clan power, then there will be local tyrants.

For the government, they also relied on these clans to help stabilize the place.

Therefore, as an exchange of hidden rules, sometimes when a clan deals with its own clan members, the government will not interfere.

In addition, in this era, in order to prevent local county magistrates from forming cliques and seeking private interests, the central government of the imperial court generally allowed local magistrates to serve in other places.

After arriving in other places, the biggest problem for the county magistrate is the different languages...

The accent of one locality in every ten miles is no joke in this era.

There are eight kinds of official Mandarin alone, and there are even more numerous local dialects.

The language is blocked, and most of the people are illiterate. If you want to govern the place, it is difficult to complete even the most basic communication. This is beyond the control of his mother!

Therefore, at this time, the county magistrate needs to rely on the power of local gentry and subordinate officials who can speak Mandarin and understand the local dialect.

Fourth, the term of office of officials is very short.

On paper, county magistrates' terms rotate every three years, but in reality most of them rotate every two years.

In two to three years, it is not enough to fully understand the various local situations.

And without a thorough understanding of the local area, if the county magistrate does something rashly, it will easily disturb the local clan forces or other groups.

This will naturally bring great resistance to the work of county magistrates.

Therefore, for the county magistrate, within this short two-three-year term, the most important thing is to ensure that the taxes handed down by the court are in place and to ensure that there will be no major unrest among the local people.

Except for these two matters, which are non-negotiable for the magistrate, other issues are negotiable for the magistrate.

Therefore, considering the two aspects, it is a relatively better way to hand over other matters to the gentry and subordinate officials who represent these local forces.

Therefore, based on the above reasons, after reaching the county level, part of the power possessed by the county magistrate was released semi-tacitly.

Let the gentry control this part of the power, and let the gentry manage the people at the lower level of townships, towns, villages, and leys on behalf of the county magistrate.

Of course, the gentry was very happy about this. No matter how small the power was, it was still power to them.

then

The gentry received part of the power transferred from the county magistrate, further improving their identity and status among the lower class people.

The county magistrate also received a bunch of free gentry labor, which could help him better stabilize and manage the local people.

It can also help the county government handle many things, reduce the burden on the county government, and help the county government operate better.

Even during holidays, the magistrate could still get some filial piety from the gentry.

As for the people at the bottom, it is easier to find the gentry than the government.

After all, if you go to the government directly, it is normal for the government to strike first with a killing stick that disturbs the government, regardless of the cause and effect.

Therefore, after many compromises and trade-offs, a result that seemed like "imperial power did not go to the countryside" was finally formed.

It can be said that "imperial power does not go to the countryside" because the central court does not personally intervene in the stability, development and construction of local society in order to save human, material, financial and other resources.

It was the result of deliberately allowing local clan gentry to implement autonomy.

Therefore, at the local level, only the local 1.1 clans can have such great influence on the people in the countryside. In most cases, they even have more power than the county government, which represents the central court.

Be big!

Because for the central government, what they usually look at is the governance results of townships, towns, villages, and li. As long as the governance results are passable, then everything else will be passable.

As for the governance process of townships, towns, villages, and li, the central government did not have time to look at it, nor did it want to take care of it.

Therefore, in Yan Changqing's view, the issue of "whether imperial power should be sent to the countryside" has been settled, but it has not been completely settled.

As long as the imperial power or the court is willing, it can also completely go to the countryside and firmly control all the power in the countryside.

It was just a matter of the will and attitude of the rulers, or it was a matter of considering the comprehensive costs of the imperial power being sent to the countryside in an all-round way.

In the end, the imperial power only extended the power of taxation and corvee to the countryside and the people, while in other aspects it chose to stay at the county level.

Of course, this was not without its drawbacks. For example, it allowed the gentry class to grow, and it also easily caused the gentry and clans to run rampant in the countryside and prey on the villagers.

It's just that compared with the huge amount of money, food, materials, salaries and other expenditures required for the imperial power to go to the countryside in an all-round way, the imperial court chose the lesser of the two powers to harm each other.

After all, as long as the court is stable and moving forward, things like gentry and clans running rampant in the countryside and fishing and meat for the villagers will not happen.

Once they become so angry that the court's attention falls on them, the court can easily crush them to death.

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