I want to be emperor

Chapter 848 Customs
In Songjiang City on New Year's Eve, most places are relatively deserted, and many shops have even started to close their shops a few days ago.

During the Spring Festival holiday, people do business all year round and want to take advantage of the Chinese New Year to take a few days off and spend time with their families. Some people will go back to their hometown alone or with their wives and children. Like Sun Dawei, they pack their things a few days earlier. I went back to my hometown in Shaanxi by train.

However, some shops that do New Year's goods and catering businesses did not close their doors during the New Year's Eve, but continued to open and were busy.

Many of the shops on Ximen Street belong to this category. The years before and during the Chinese New Year are the busiest time of the year and the most profitable time for them.

So even if it's the afternoon of the New Year's Eve, many places have already had New Year's Eve dinner in advance...

The Great Chu Empire has a vast land and abundant resources, and some specific customs of the Chinese New Year are also different from place to place. In some places, the New Year’s Eve dinner is eaten at night, but in some places it is eaten earlier in the evening, in some places it is at noon, and in some places, the New Year’s Eve dinner is always at noon. eat till night...

How to celebrate the so-called traditional festivals, there are different customs and customs in different parts of the Great Chu Empire, such as July and a half in later generations, after a long evolution, especially after the middle of the twentieth century, this festival was directly regarded as a ghost superstition In the end, it even turned into a ghost festival...After being rendered by Hong Kong ghost movies...well, everyone thinks it is a ghost festival, so that on July [-]th, what kind of street fires are going on? Things like paper money are filled with an eerie atmosphere.

However, in some places that still maintain ancient traditions, July and a half is still a festive day for expecting a good harvest, offering sacrifices to ancestors, and visiting relatives and friends.

So, when you see someone telling you Happy Hungry Ghost Festival... don't be surprised, they are just using the ancient local traditional etiquette to convey joy to you... It's not that they regard you as a ghost!

For an empire with a large place and a large population, the customs of different groups in different places are actually very different, even during the Spring Festival.

However, in Songjiang City, after people from all over the world gathered together, some of their festival habits were gradually eased, and then tended to be unified.

For example, the Spring Festival, in the past, the concept of the Spring Festival was actually relatively unified and monotonous, mainly as the beginning of the year, welcoming the new and saying goodbye to the old, and offering sacrifices to ancestors by the way...but it does not contain the concept of reunion!

Why?Because people in ancient times rarely left their hometowns... a family was basically trapped within a small radius of dozens of miles from birth to death.

There is no such concept as going home for the New Year...In ancient times, the Mid-Autumn Festival, which was developed from worshiping the moon, had the meaning of family reunion. When a woman goes back to her natal family, she must return to her husband's house on the same day to show the meaning of reunion...Origin Well, it is estimated that the moon on August [-]th is round and round, which is very suitable for such as reunion.

Look up at the bright moon, bow your head and think about your hometown!

The concept of going home to celebrate the New Year during the Spring Festival has been widely spread, and even now many people will go home to celebrate the New Year when it is the Spring Festival. In fact, it gradually evolved after the establishment of the Great Chu Empire.

And behind this... In fact, with the continuous development of industry and commerce, a large number of people left their hometowns to do business, work, become officials, and join the army, which in turn produced a large number of foreign groups.

It is easy to understand that groups of people from other lands are born in business and work, but joining the army and being an official are due to the system of appointment and service in different places.

In the civil servant appointment system of the Great Chu Empire, it is the basic principle to be an official in a different place, even the low-level staff from the ninth rank, they also adopt a different place to be an official. , from Bapin.The eighth rank is not allowed to be an official in the county, and the seventh rank and above must be an official in a different prefecture.

In short... don't expect to be an official in your hometown, this is to avoid the situation that local clans and local officials can't lose their tails.

This is still talking about civil servants, and the management of civil servants is actually easier.

If it's the army, it's even more serious, even if it's just an ordinary soldier, they all adopt the model of serving in other provinces.

Then the origins of the officers and soldiers cannot be the same... Simply put, it cannot be the general of province A leading the soldiers of province A.

To put it simply, the soldiers recruited from province A went to serve in the garrison of province B, and were led by the chief officer of the army who was originally from province C.

At the same time, there will not be a large number of officers in the same place in the officer group.

This is due to the underdeveloped transportation in the early days. At the same time, because the Chu Empire is too large, the dialects, living habits, and even adaptability to the climate of soldiers in many places are different. Therefore, the Chu army has always sent soldiers from the same place. , grouped into one place as much as possible.

For this reason, a relatively fixed relationship between recruiting and replenishing soldiers has also been formed.

For example, it participated in the Nanyang Peninsula War before, and is currently stationed and suppressing the Eighth Division in Myanmar. Although it was stationed in Yunnan for a long time before, in fact, the soldiers of the Eighth Division were all recruited from Guangxi.

And when it comes to a certain regiment, a certain battalion has a corresponding prefectural and county conscription place, such as the No.30 Infantry Regiment, all of its soldiers are recruited from Guilin Prefecture.

These troops usually send people to set up corresponding offices in the corresponding places all the year round to cooperate with local recruitment, pensions, training and other matters in the sign area to which they belong.

Therefore, among the people, some people say that the Eighth Division is the Guangxi Division; the No. 30 Infantry Regiment to which the Eighth Division belongs is the Guilin Regiment.

This was an act of compromise that had to be made in the early years when the official language was not popular enough and the soldiers’ education level was too low. In fact, it is still customary to assign soldiers of the same native place together.

It's just not as fastidious as it used to be.

Therefore, in the local Chu army, the Eighth Division still strictly abides by the tradition and pursues the model of fixed conscript areas, but there are also many troops that have begun to mix soldiers from different origins to serve... These years, with the vigorous development of government-run primary school education , the corresponding Mandarin is also very popular among young people. After soldiers in different provinces have no communication barriers, it is naturally easier to mix and match, and only need to consider living habits.

However, living habits also have a big impact. For example, it is not convenient for northern soldiers and southern soldiers to mix together... because southern soldiers are used to eating rice, and soldiers in the north and northwest are used to eating pasta.

For example, during the Chinese New Year, some northern regions are used to eating dumplings during the Chinese New Year... But when the southerners heard this, they would probably ask in a very cautious tone: "Is it a big Chinese New Year to eat dumplings... It's not that good, at least get two green vegetables!"

The northerners will look at you with contempt: In the winter in the north, show me some green vegetables (in ancient times).

People in other places are used to eating sweet tofu flower, and people in some places are used to eating salty tofu flower. This kind of difference in eating habits will be more troublesome if they are mixed together forcibly.

If you don’t understand this, let me ask you: today the cafeteria has prepared salted tofu flower, do you like it?

The huge difference in geographical environment and climate will lead to huge differences in the living habits of people in different regions. Let alone ancient times, even in the 21st century, the economic level is so developed, but it is still unavoidable.

This is not a question of who is good or bad, but the difference in living habits caused by the living environment, there is no distinction between good and bad!

In the Chu army, because soldiers from different regions have different dialects and living habits, they tend to form troops according to the same native place.

As for the restrictions on officers, it is purely to prevent officers from forming regional groups and becoming warlords after being stationed in a certain area for a long time.

Up to now, with the more developed transportation and the more confident high-level empire, the empire is more developed, the people's recognition of the empire is higher, and the restrictions on officers are slightly less, but only less, not completely. disappear.

In the current empire's military out-of-province principle, the restrictions on officers are that they must serve in other provinces (an exception is for generals from Yingtianfu who serve in the Gyeonggi military institution where Jinling City is located), and generals in the province are not allowed to lead soldiers in the province. Enter the commander of the three-level troops of the division.

However, there are no restrictions on deputy positions, chief of staff, and low- and middle-level positions, such as battalion commanders, company commanders, and platoon leaders.

At the same time, there are no restrictions on higher-level military-level chief officers, that is, army commanders, or even higher-level army commanders.

The principle of appointment and service in different places led to the emergence of millions of soldiers and officials who were away all year round in the early days of the Great Chu Empire.

And this number has not decreased but increased over time... After all, the population has been growing, and at the same time government agencies are constantly optimizing and improving... Well, sometimes it is simply to increase the employment rate of college students!

Some college students failed to pass the imperial examination after graduation, and enterprises may not be able to provide enough high-level jobs.

Well, this is also the reason why the higher education in the Great Chu Empire has not opened up large-scale enrollment for decades... In terms of current productivity, there are only so many high-end jobs that the whole society can provide, and you have produced so many college students Come and can't digest, is it possible that you still expect these college students to go to the assembly line?

The highly educated and capable college students cultivated by the Great Chu Empire are more troublesome than the ancient scholars...

Especially those liberal arts college students, if they are not absorbed into the ruling class in time, it will be a disaster!
In order to avoid trouble, the university degrees of the Great Chu Empire are strictly controlled. The enrollment scale of the university is determined according to the overall social and economic development and population growth rate, and more than 80.00% of the degrees in the university are science degrees, and the liberal arts degrees are very low. few.

Especially some special majors, such as history... The history of the Great Chu Empire is not something like archaeological digging, but the study of the rise and fall of historical dynasties, summarizing, and using history as a mirror.

The departments of history in the universities of the Great Chu Empire, more accurately, should be called the Department of History and Politics...the corresponding ones are the history theory in the imperial examination...Typical topics are: Trying to discuss Qin Shangyang's reform is strong, Song Wangan Stone transformation method is weak.

So, strictly speaking, the history students in the Great Chu Empire are not studying history, but politics. People who study this stuff are all rushing to become officials.

And the Great Chu Empire also knows this, so for a discipline with a very strong political nature like the Department of History, the enrollment quota is very strictly controlled... in order to ensure that every graduate can eventually enter the Great Chu smoothly In the official ranks of the empire, these people will not be allowed to wander outside and become a scourge!
Because these people, one counts as the other, are all rushing to become officials, and they are also learning the way of governing the world and assisting the emperor. If you don't let them become officials...if they don't make it right, they will rebel and show you.

It is said that Han Chuang has studied hard for more than ten years, just for the sake of the emperor's family... If your emperor's family doesn't want it, they can praise another emperor, or simply become the emperor himself.

Fortunately, the Great Chu Empire knew the role and potential harm of these talents, so the control was relatively strict. Occasionally, in some years, graduates of these majors were not easy to find employment, so they took advantage of the trend to increase the number of officials admitted, but the total amount was not high. That's too much.

The official team of the Great Chu Empire, as a whole, gradually increased with the population size.

Today, officials and soldiers enjoy rank treatment, but teachers in government-run schools without corresponding political treatment, doctors in hospitals, and staff of government-run institutions who are nurses, plus some who do not have official status but provide services to official institutions Ordinary contract employees, such as coachmen, cooks and some ordinary clerical staff.

To put it simply, there are probably more than 700 million people who rely on direct financial support.

Well, this number, you cannot simply think that they are all officials or civil servants...officials are only a part of it...it also includes other groups.

For example, soldiers accounted for 200 million, and teachers and doctors also accounted for a considerable part.

Of course, even so, the Great Chu Empire has reached the level of seven or 80 people supporting one financial officer, and the overall support ratio is relatively high.

Why is this happening?

The main reason is that the army of the Great Chu Empire is large... Let alone the field troops, only the garrison troops. In any county in the Great Chu Empire, there will be a squadron of third-class garrison divisions, ranging from dozens to hundreds of people. wait.

Then there will be larger C-level garrison troops in the prefectures and provincial capitals, and more troops will be stationed in some traffic, dangerous places, and border areas.

The size of the standing army of the Chu army has never been small.

Furthermore, the teachers in government-run schools and the doctors and nurses in government-run medical institutions all eat financial food, and the sum is not a small number...

It has always been very expensive to engage in inclusive basic education and inclusive medical care, and it costs money every year, like a bottomless pit!
Then the Great Chu Empire implemented the powerful ruling measures of imperial power going to the countryside... There are also towns under the county, and the towns govern the villages, and there are two more grassroots administrative agencies. Although there are no official officials in the village, the local villagers are only allowed to serve as village heads. , the village tax officer, and the village patrol, but they also need to pay a certain amount of subsidies.

In order to send the imperial power to the countryside and strengthen the rule, a large number of officials were added, which led to a considerable increase in the cost of rule.

So don't think that the ancient dynasties were unwilling to send imperial power to the countryside. In fact, most of them were not unwilling, but couldn't do it... The productivity in ancient times was too low to support so many people who eat imperial food.

And there are not enough officials, what kind of imperial power are you going to the countryside!

The second and most important point is that the Great Chu Empire adopted a unified system of officials and officials, and did not separate officials from officials like traditional dynasties... This led to a substantial increase in the number of officials on the surface.

In traditional dynasties, in a county with tens of thousands of people, it seems that there are only a few officials, but in fact there are still a large number of 'officials' who eat financially, and there are more officials who do not take money on the surface, but in fact still rely on the people. The help of offerings...

These helpers to collect taxes to feed themselves and extort money to feed them are both burdens on the people, and there is no essential difference.

This means that the ruling group supported by the people can add up to dozens or hundreds in a county... It is also very exaggerated.

So, don't say that there were few officials in ancient times and the burden on the people was low!

Similar to the agricultural tax in ancient times, it was only a few percent. I feel that the ancient farmers were very chic and the burden was very low... Most people probably don’t know that in addition to taxes, the ancient farmers had to bear a lot of taxes and taxes. All kinds of messy allocations, the latter two are the absolute big heads.

In fact, the burden of the people in the Great Chu Empire is the lowest in China for thousands of years!

'Unified agricultural tax', complete abolition of corvee, small silver, various apportionments, uniform collection of agricultural tax according to the number of acres, unprecedented in the ages... plus the taxation of gentry and gentry, and no Huangzhuang like the Ming Dynasty, it was implemented later Ladder agricultural tax severely cracks down on big landlords.

After these measures were implemented, the farmers of the Great Chu Empire survived and lived better.

Coupled with the rapid development of industry and commerce, good transportation and internal business conditions, the three legs of agriculture, industry, and service industries walked together, and finally the Great Chu Empire rose to the pinnacle of the world.

And Songjiang City is the most dazzling pearl in this huge empire!

(End of this chapter)