I want to be emperor

Chapter 1192: The Imperial Censor's Induced Law Enforcement

In October of the early winter of the 54th year of Chengshun, the empire officially introduced plans to support remote and backward areas.

The core goal in this regard is to increase employment opportunities and people's income levels in inland and remote areas, and to narrow the income gap with the developed eastern coastal areas as much as possible.

There are three specific measures. The first is to increase industrial support for large cities in the central and western regions, select several regional central cities for key support and development, create more jobs in the secondary and tertiary industries, and enable people in surrounding areas to find suitable jobs nearby.

The second point is to vigorously develop the urban economy and support small cities in developing industry and commerce in accordance with local conditions, thereby creating local jobs.

The third point is to further reduce the export costs of local agricultural products and mineral products, which will be reflected in preferential subsidies for railway and inland waterway transportation.

The first batch of cities included in the key support list include Chengdu, Kunming, Guiyang, Chang'an, Yili and other central and western cities.

These places have relatively large local populations, but weak economic capabilities, average industries, and are cities that are regional centers.

The imperial top leaders tried to increase support for these large Midwestern cities, turning them into local regional economic and industrial centers, and thereby create a large number of jobs.

In addition to industrial centers, the imperial leadership is also promoting the development of industry in small and medium-sized cities in the Midwest based on the urban economic model of the developed eastern regions. Many cities are not large in scale and only need a few factories to provide a large number of jobs, effectively promote local economic circulation, and enter a virtuous economic model.

We don't expect to do very well, the main purpose is to solve the local employment problem.

After all, not everyone is willing or has the opportunity to work in big cities outside of Beijing. Many people are unable to work in big cities due to family and other factors.

If given a choice, many people would actually prefer to work in their hometown, even if the income is lower.

But this is actually more difficult than supporting the development of regional economic centers.

If we support the development of a regional economic center city, the city itself has relatively good conditions. The imperial high-level officials only need to give certain policy support and some funds, mainly investment in transportation facilities, then it will be easier to develop.

However, the development of small and medium-sized cities is not so easy.

After all, industry itself has a focusing effect. Factories are very sensitive to the surrounding supply chains and transportation costs, and small places have natural disadvantages compared to big cities in these things.

Therefore, it is very difficult for small cities to develop industry.

It is worth mentioning that it is difficult to develop industry in small places. This is also an important reason why local government offices in the Great Chu Empire have almost blatantly protected local small and medium-sized textile enterprises and small hardware machinery factories in the past few decades.

Because in the era of large-scale industry, the threshold for the textile industry and small hardware processing factories (producing simple metal products such as farm tools and kitchen utensils) was relatively low, the requirements for other aspects were not too high, and they could also be supported by the local market.

Therefore, these two types of enterprises are the only industries in most small cities.

In order to protect their only industrial seedling, the local Chu government offices basically liked to engage in local protectionism and set up a large number of hidden obstacles for various foreign textiles, small hardware, especially farm tools and kitchen utensils.

This is also an important reason why there are no super-large-scale textile enterprises in the textile industry, because it is difficult to obtain a large market. Those seemingly large-scale textile enterprises are actually basically large regional textile enterprises.

Unlike other types of industries, many companies are able to sell their products nationwide without encountering any obstacles.

For example, the equipment needed by the recently booming film industry, the cameras, projectors and film produced by Anzhou Optical Instrument Company will hardly encounter any obstacles.

Because the technical threshold for this thing is very high, it is difficult to do it even in big cities, let alone small cities.

However, it is difficult to truly promote local industrial development and create a large number of jobs by relying solely on local small-scale textile and small hardware machinery industries.

Because these enterprises in small places benefit from local protectionism and are able to gain access to large local markets, they are also unable to expand outward and increase their scale because of local protectionism.

These two types of companies are hanging on by a thread, they can’t die, but they can’t grow either!

At this time, the top leaders of the empire, after years of research and pilot projects, finally put forward the requirement that local areas develop industries according to local conditions.

This is to avoid repeated similar competition among various regions and then fall into a new round of local protection dilemma.

If we adapt to local conditions, this will be more feasible. For example, if the terrain and climate in a place are very good, we can grow tea on a large scale, and then develop the tea processing industry, ultimately creating more jobs and increasing tax revenue for local people.

For example, if a certain place in the local area is more suitable for growing a certain kind of fruit, then grow that fruit and then develop the fruit processing industry.

In short, it is to allow each place to develop according to its own unique advantages, rather than just doing whatever makes money as before.

In fact, developing industries in accordance with local conditions is something that many places have done before, but it has never been raised to an important level and then given relevant support.

When the top leaders of the empire raise this matter to a certain level, they will provide corresponding technical and financial support.

For example, in terms of technology, a team of experts will be selected to visit and investigate each area, and give guidance based on local conditions on what crops are suitable for planting and development.

In terms of funding, local governments are given a certain amount of financial support to be used as support funds for the development of special industries, or for subsidies, or for improving transportation facilities, or for reducing or exempting certain taxes.

With this support, it will be more feasible for local governments to promote the development of local characteristic industries.

Support the economic development of remote and backward areas.

This macro policy can be said to be the most important policy proposed by the empire in the past decade.

And doing this is not just a slogan, but it will actually require the mobilization of a large amount of manpower and material resources to do it. The scale of funds involved behind this is several hundred million.

Such a huge amount of funds will certainly not be distributed directly. Most of it will be distributed through subsidies for transportation, water conservancy, and local characteristic industries.

What the public can see directly is the construction of railways and various roads.

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If you want to get rich, you must first build roads. This saying is also applicable to the empire.

If the transportation is not cheap, not to mention whether the industry can be developed or not, it will be difficult for local people to go out to work and earn money.

Therefore, the prerequisite for economic development in remote and backward areas is the construction of transportation facilities.

The imperial top brass have always acted quickly on such matters. Just one month later, the railway agency had announced plans to build branch lines in the three major railway networks: the Southwestern Railway Network, the Northwestern Railway Network, and the Northern Railway Network.

We will strive to build a number of branch railways around the existing trunk railways of these three major railway networks within the next ten years, so as to provide railway access to more places that do not have railways.

In this era, the volume of road transport is still very small and the cost is high. Therefore, for areas that lack river transport networks, rail transport is still the most efficient and lowest-cost mode of transportation for large quantities of people and goods over long distances.

This is different from the modern society in the original time and space.

In the modern society of the original time and space, with the rapid development of engineering technology, the cost of building roads has dropped significantly. At the same time, the development of the automobile industry has brought about various types of large trucks, which has increased the transportation volume and controlled the cost.

However, these are impossible to achieve in the modern era. For example, although mechanized equipment has been used on a large scale in engineering construction in the Chu Empire, the cost is still relatively high and the efficiency is far less than that of modern mechanical equipment in later generations, which means that the cost of building roads will not be too low. As for cars and horse-drawn carriages, horse-drawn carriages are not to be mentioned. Although they look primitive, the transportation cost is actually very expensive.

As for automobiles, although the contemporary automobile industry has developed rapidly, the technological level of automobiles is still relatively limited, and transportation costs are still relatively high.

Taking various conditions into consideration, although the cost of building a railway is relatively high, the overall cost-effectiveness after completion is higher.

The Great Chu Empire has actually always been keen on building railways, but the cost of building railways is relatively high, especially in mountainous areas with complex terrain. The cost will be relatively high. Therefore, in the early days of railway construction, railway construction in remote and backward areas was mainly trunk railways, and there were relatively few branch railways.

After all, it costs money to build railways, and it also costs money to operate them. Even if the railway companies intend to do it at a loss, they cannot lose too much.

Now, as various branch railways in the economically developed eastern regions have been built almost completely, and some provinces have even achieved train service in every county, the railway companies can also allocate more funds to build railways in remote and backward areas.

Expand outward around the existing trunk railways and build more branch railways to drive local economic development.

This is the main railway construction plan of the Great Chu Empire in the next ten years!

  In addition to railways, there is another major transportation construction that has been elevated to a strategic level, and that is highway construction!

Although the cost of automobile transportation is still relatively high today, and the cost of road construction is not cheap, it is still cheaper than building railways. Moreover, it is not realistic to build paved roads in remote and backward areas...

The highway construction plan proposed by the transportation department for remote and backward areas mainly focuses on building gravel roads and cinder roads, and mainly has two-lane roads.

The transportation department has incorporated this plan into the national highway plan.

The National Official Road Plan is a new official road plan proposed after the original official road network was overwhelmed based on the current development of automobile technology, the rapid increase in the number of cars, the increasing importance of automobile transportation, and the fact that the original official road network was overwhelmed.

The plan is actually very simple, which is to gradually upgrade and modify the existing official roads, and upgrade the official roads that were originally only used for horse-drawn carriages and pedestrians into roads that can accommodate cars.

And depending on factors such as traffic volume, choose paved road surface or gravel or cinder road surface.

However, this kind of thing is actually not necessary in the developed eastern regions, because the local official road network is very complete. Although the proportion of asphalt and cement paved roads is still very small, there are many cinder roads and gravel roads.

The highway network in the economically developed eastern regions is actually very complete. For example, if you drive from Jinling City, you can basically go to any county or even town in the Panjiangnan area via the official road.

In the economically developed eastern regions, driving across cities has become a common thing... Of course, most people won't do this, because even in the economically developed eastern regions, most of the road networks are actually cinder roads, gravel roads, and there are very few asphalt roads. Driving long distances is not comfortable... If you have the time, it's more convenient, comfortable and faster to take the train directly.

Currently, the largest paved road is mainly the Yangtze River Official Road, which goes west to Dangtu City in Yingtian Prefecture, along the Yangtze River to Zhenjiang, Changzhou, Suzhou and finally to Songjiang, with a total length of about 500 kilometers.

This is the only four-lane asphalt road in the Great Chu Empire that is hundreds of kilometers long.

In other places, these inter-city roads are generally gravel roads or cinder roads.

Of course, even this kind of cinder road or gravel road is not easy to build, and it is impossible to build it without some industrial strength.

With the continuous development of the contemporary petroleum industry, oil production continues to rise, and the petroleum industry also produces a large amount of waste, namely asphalt.

This thing is very useful for paving roads.

Therefore, in recent years, asphalt has been used on a large scale to pave urban roads in the Great Chu Empire.

In addition to urban roads, the transportation department also plans to pave asphalt or cement on some important official trunk roads to increase road transport capacity.

However... this kind of asphalt or cement trunk road is still limited to the economically developed areas in the east. It is too expensive, and building this kind of road also depends on the cost and subsequent benefits.

  It is impossible for the Chu government to build a four-lane asphalt road hundreds of kilometers long in the deep mountains and forests just for a few thousand or tens of thousands of people... If they did so, the censors in the local inspectorate would have a collective party, and then they would investigate the local officials one by one, and finally send them all to prison!

With this money, you might as well just give each of these families a house in Songjiang City...the relocated people will be happier.

And even if every household was given a house, you would still have a lot of money left.

  When building a road in a deserted place, you can treat the common people as fools, but you cannot treat those imperial censors as fools!

The censors of the Chu State were a rather special group. They were also officials, but they naturally stood in opposition to officials from other systems.

  Because in the imperial censor system of the Great Chu Empire, the only criterion for measuring your work ability is how many corrupt officials you have arrested?

Not to mention catching corrupt officials to climb up, even if you want to keep your position, you have to catch a corrupt official every once in a while, otherwise you will lose your position.

  Every senior censor in the Great Chu Empire is a veritable official butcher, and each of them is a super ruthless person who has captured countless corrupt officials!

How should I put it? As the Grand Censor of the Grand Inspectorate in the Great Chu Empire, if you want to climb to this position, if you want to become a minister of state... do you think you can do it just by spending time?

impossible!

There are hard conditions here... If you don't pull down an assistant minister, you can never expect to become the Grand Censor in your lifetime because you don't have enough qualifications.

The positions of other censors are similar!

Anyway, if the censor wants to be promoted, he must catch enough corrupt officials... Even if he wants to maintain his current position, he also needs to catch enough corrupt officials... If he fails to do so, he will be relegated to the second line in a minute.

Under such circumstances, officials from other systems are seen by these imperial censors as consumables to maintain their official positions, or even to get promoted and make money...

And they often complete tasks and set targets... In other words, no matter what you do, you have to get a few corrupt officials for your superiors.

Whenever the superiors gave out tasks and said that they were still short of a few heads this year, the local censors would have to find ways to arrest a few more corrupt officials to hand in the heads. If you didn't do that, you would be immediately relegated to the second line.

As for whether the arrest was wrong or whether the person was wrongly accused...there is no such thing as an injustice. It's just a matter of how much greed there is and how serious the circumstances are.

If there is a rumor that there is a vacant position at the top... then these censors will go crazy: a group of censors who are expected to be promoted will frantically look for evidence everywhere to try to catch one or more corrupt officials who are important enough as capital for their own promotion.

  This is an open competition!

The censors within the Inspectorate are actually very stubborn!

If you have arrested three fifth-rank officials and the other party has arrested four fifth-rank officials, then promotion has nothing to do with you, because the internal promotion of the censors never considers other twists and turns, but only the number and quality of the corrupt officials arrested...

So... whenever there is an important position vacant in the Inspectorate system, it basically means that a political storm is coming... Those censors will do anything to climb to a higher position, so don't say that you are actively corrupt.

Even if you are not greedy, people will still induce you to do so through law enforcement.

By the way, in the Great Chu Empire, the censors were allowed to conduct induced law enforcement against corrupt officials. In order to achieve performance, the censors were particularly fond of induced law enforcement. They often tried every means to give money and women to those officials to lure them into corruption, and then they would be arrested as soon as they got into the water...

Don’t even mention whether it’s reasonable or not, or whether the impact is bad or not… The censors are not hiding the fact that they are inducing law enforcement. It is almost an open secret across the country, and even ordinary people know that the censors like to use this method to catch corrupt officials.

As an official, he clearly knew that the money might be bait from the Censor, but he still had the guts to take it. Isn't this just giving the Censor a performance award?

Who can you blame if you can't stand the test?

So... for many local officials, they have to be very cautious when accepting bribes. They will not accept money that is not from a reliable source, because they don’t know whether the money is a bait from the censor.

Why has the Inspectorate in the Great Chu Empire become what it is now, even to the point of being perverted?

In fact, the reason is very simple, that is, the empire needs to regularly clean up the internal official system...

In fact, even officials from other systems are not averse to this. Without the censors to bring down the officials above them, how can he get promoted?

One carrot, one hole!