Cutting 1719

Chapter 444 The Essence of a Gentleman

It took only three days for a large-scale search and arrest operation that spread to several provinces, and it took only three days to fully reveal the truth. The operation affected hundreds of gentry families in many southern provinces. The Han army shot to death, and as many as [-] people were captured, which almost wiped out the southern gentry.

At the same time, the government and the public were also deeply shocked by this action. Dozens of officials from the Metropolitan Procuratorate and ministers wrote to Ning Yu to request a suspension of the restructuring. In their opinion, such a restructuring would offend everyone in the world. Gentleman, it is really irrational behavior.

Ning Yu was not too polite with them, and directly demoted all the officials who submitted the letter to the two provinces of Yunnan and Guizhou, and went to serve as officials in the grassroots yamen that had just been reformed. The whole hall was also silent like a cicada, for fear of touching Ning Yu's back scales.

The reason why he was cruel to these people was that Ning Yu didn't want to bear it anymore, and there was no need to bear it anymore.Because through this action, Ning Yu has completely seen through the nature of the gentry's sternness and inwardness, and they no longer have any scruples when they start to fight, and they don't have any courage to make trouble at all.

Therefore, after the arrest operation was announced to be over, Ning Yu directly held an enlarged cabinet meeting quickly, and made an exception to let the shadow leader Ning Luoyuan attend to give a comprehensive report on this operation.

"Since this operation, Shadow and the military have dispatched a total of more than 140 troops, which have spread to seven provinces and regions, arrested more than 180 rioters, and killed and injured more than 120 people during the arrest operation. people, seized more than 100 blunderbusses, 600 and seven cannons, [-] and four casualties of our army, sealed up and seized properties totaling more than [-] million taels of gold, [-] million taels of silver, and seized land deeds of [-] million mu.”

Ning Luoyuan's hands trembled slightly. He never expected that through this scientific examination petition, the old background of the southern gentry would be exposed at once. Although not all the gentry were hit this time, it still made him feel To a little nervous and excited, this is a big victory no less than the front line.

Of course, the resulting troubles are also very serious. Since the big search and arrest, almost all the gentry in areas close to the Qing court have fled privately with their old and young, and officials in many places have even abandoned their positions. If it wasn't for Ning Chu's effective control over the army, there might even be chaos within the army.

This is also the reason for the criticism of the emperor inside and outside the court. It is too cruel and too extreme. It almost makes people think that this is the emperor deliberately making use of the problem to catch all the gentry.

However, when the ministers heard the numbers reported by Ning Luoyuan, their heartbeats began to speed up, and some people even felt dizzy. This time the seizure was comparable to two years of annual income, even Even worse, some ministers originally wanted to speak, but now they completely shut up in front of these figures.

However, Ning Zhongjing, the chief assistant, still felt a headache. This time Ning Chu could be said to have created a precedent in history. You must know that no one had dared to treat a gentry like this before.
There are many reasons why there has been no chaos so far. Firstly, Ningchu is able to control the local area. Officials are sent directly to the county level, and a large number of veterans are also arranged to control the countryside. Second, after all, the war ended not long ago, and many The vitality of the gentry clan had been exhausted in the previous war, so it seemed that no chaos broke out, but if it was the Qing Dynasty who did this, I am afraid that the next day there would be wars everywhere!

But even so, Ning Zhongjing couldn't help but sigh, with this time, the gentry in the world might be in trouble with Ning Chu in the future!

Ning Yu looked at the different looks of the ministers in the group, but he didn't have so many worries. He snorted coldly and said, "From now on, the imperial examination petition is not a big case, but why did I go to war so much? The reason is very simple. That is to cut off some people's minds and make them fully realize that they are completely enemies with me and Da Chu!"

After saying these words, the officials couldn't help being stunned. Never before had the emperor expressed his thoughts so bluntly. Some are not used to it, it seems that some atmosphere is missing.

Ning Yu looked at the ministers coldly, and said loudly: "Before this incident, it's not that no one has persuaded me, in fact, there are many people who have persuaded me." At this point, Ning Yu glanced around at the ministers, slowly He opened his mouth, "Some people say that the Northern Expedition is coming soon! You can't push the gentry to the Qing court! But I want to say that this problem should be solved before the Northern Expedition, because we have to solve the problem thoroughly and cleanly when we march into the North in the future!"

"You all know this issue in your heart. That is the land issue that I have repeatedly emphasized. As long as there are a large number of clan gentry who hold land, as long as they do not obey the management of the New Deal, they will be my enemies!"

In fact, for any dynasty, the struggle between the court and the gentry has always been from beginning to end. The more wise and powerful the emperor is, the more he will attack the gentry. The reason is very simple. If the dynasty is compared to a normal People, then the gentry is a cancer attached to it.

The reason for this is not the amount of wealth. In fact, Ning Yu has never worried about how many silver dollars his merchants have, but he is particularly alert to the amount of land occupied by gentry, because gentry can control a large number of people through land. When these populations do not belong to the jurisdiction of the imperial court, it will be a very dangerous problem.

Before Ning Chu started his family, the Ning family was such a typical gentry clan. At that time, through Ning Zhongyuan's power, coupled with the Ning family's own resources and relationships, the Ning family almost built an environment of its own in Hanyang Mansion. Not only controlled a large amount of land, but also controlled the population on these lands, and even became the root of the Ning family's rebellion.

And such an environment is not uncommon. For any large-scale gentry clan, the location of their clan is usually their sphere of influence. Anyone who goes to Hanyang to be an official needs to seek help from the Ning family.

Now when Ning Yu himself became emperor, he naturally has a very jealous mentality towards the gentry. The various bills and policies passed successively are all aimed at weakening the power of the gentry. Therefore, at this stage, the relationship between Ning Chu and the gentry The conflict between them has become public.

It's just that since Yongzheng came to power, in order to implement his New Deal, he actually took the initiative to destroy the relationship with the Han gentry, so the gentry had no way to continue to approach the Qing court, and it can be said that they chose a wait-and-see attitude.

Under this wait-and-see attitude, Ning Chu took down other provinces in the south one after another, and his wings were completely enriched. Therefore, Ning Yu decided to directly fight against the gentry group, so as to avoid the problem from continuing to be delayed until the unification in the future, otherwise the scope involved will also be huge. More broadly, at the same time, it is also dividing the power of the gentry group.

And for Ning Yu, there is another advantage to solving the gentry problem right now, that is, the potential to greatly increase fiscal and taxation, because after such a reform, the land problem will be alleviated at that time, and a large number of self-cultivating farmers and farmers will be created. Small landowners, and they are the best taxpayers.

Of course, there are problems. The first thing that can be expected is that the northern gentry may start to move closer to the Qing court. They will not just watch Ning Chu rule the whole country and then deprive them of their land - this is already conceivable , so Ning Yu doesn't care too much.

What Ning Yu really cares about is another point, that is, the issue of grassroots governance. Since the gentry control the land and population, they are also the actual partners of the imperial court below the county level. Now Ning Yu has passed the land area gradient taxation bill, Depriving these people of too much land is also depriving them of their actual dominance at the grassroots level.

Without these people, Ning Chu can only rely on the bureaucracy, and this is something that Ning Yu attaches great importance to.

"Cifu, how many people have passed the xiucai test in this imperial examination?"

This time, the new imperial examination was jointly completed by the secondary assistant Cui Wancai and the Ministry of Education, as well as the examination institutes of the provincial education departments. Although there was such a big disturbance, the goal was basically achieved overall.

Cui Wancai stood up and said in a low voice: "Reporting to the emperor, due to the liberalization of registration restrictions for the imperial examination, there were more than 4000 applicants, and as many as 27 and [-] people passed the exam. More than [-] people will participate in the six-month government affairs training course organized by the Organization Department, and those who pass the training course will be awarded officials. Confer an official and report to the Organization Department for review."

Ning Yu nodded. More than 6000 people applied for the exam, which shows a problem, that is, many people are still interested in new learning, and more than 4000 people passed the exam. The reason why so many quotas have been designated is very simple, Ningchu currently lacks officials.

The so-called lack of officials does not refer to the lack of Zhengyin officials, but the grassroots clerks. Since Ning Chu put officials and officials into the official establishment before, there is no so-called high or low right now, only grades to divide.

Therefore, in the future, when these more than 4000 people pass the government affairs training course, they will all be assigned to the grassroots, starting from a low-level official, and will be promoted after a certain number of years or with certain credits. To officials with ranks, that is, the most basic level from the ninth rank.

As for the past, the history of being able to confer high-level official positions once you pass the Jinshi examination is completely gone forever. Now everyone has to start from the lowest level, from the most ordinary radish pit.

Ning Zhongjing, the chief assistant, was a little worried. He was not worried about these talents, but worried about the financial expenditure of the imperial court, "Your Majesty, although our current financial revenue has increased significantly, our expenditure is still very important. It’s even more explosive growth! If there are such redundant officials in the future, I’m afraid it will cause a complete imbalance of fiscal revenue and expenditure.”

The meaning of these words is actually that Ning Chu is giving too many places at the moment. In the past, the imperial examinations were once every three years, and occasionally Enke was added, but now it is once a year. In the past, there were only two or three imperial examinations every year. Hundreds passed the exam, but now thousands of people passed the exam. Thinking about it, I feel overwhelmed.

Ning Yu doesn't think so. In the traditional Ming and Qing official systems, although it seems that the number of officials is small and the cost is very low, it is a great thing for the common people, but in fact this is a manifestation of lazy administration. They just Pushing the common affairs to the officials and the gentry did not reduce the burden on the common people.

"Shou Fu doesn't need to worry too much. You can simply do the math. Although there were fewer places in the imperial examinations in the past, the official ranks awarded by these people were very high, and it was difficult to directly do something for the court. Is this business worthwhile? If it’s not cost-effective, let’s talk about it—now Ningchu has abolished the distinction between officials and officials, and there is a lack of a large number of officials at the grassroots level. If these people are sent to fill in the pits, it will not necessarily increase the burden on the court.”

"First of all, we must understand that at present, Dachu does not increase the number of officials without limit, but depends on the revenue of each province and the appropriation of the central government to determine how many specific pitfalls there are. Those who have money save more things, so recruit more , more than half of their salaries can be shared by the localities, on the contrary, provinces without money will have fewer places, and the imperial court will support more.”

Having said this, everyone understood the way of the emperor. The good guy put the theory of business into it, and it was a bit frenzied.

However, there are still some loopholes in Ning Yu's theory. With a bit of doubt on his face, Li Fu, the censor of Zuodu of the Metropolitan Procuratorate, said in a low voice: "Nowadays, the finance and taxation of the provinces in the southeast are still solid, and the problem is not that big, but in the southeast. The finances of several provinces are weak at present, but there is no shortage of officials, otherwise the imperial court will not be able to control these border areas."

When everyone heard it, they immediately felt very reasonable. Not bad, we can't just leave the rich provinces aside and play with the poor ones!

In fact, the question raised by Li Fu gave Ning Yu some headaches, because this problem is inherently difficult to solve. Except for the road of economic development, the other ways are only to delay the emergence of the crisis.

Ning Yu was silent for a while, and then said in a low voice: "For these provinces, the central government will provide support, at least to ensure the basic operation of their government offices. This is also the inevitable price to be paid to ensure territorial unity and border stability. .”

Cui Wancai nodded silently when he heard this, and then said with emotion: "Your Majesty's words are reasonable, and this is also one of the main purposes for us to take power from the gentry, otherwise the imperial court alone may not be able to push forward. "

　Although this chapter is relatively dull and boring, the amount of information in it is very large, and there are some things that the author can't continue to extend. Please understand.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)