Eighth year of Chongzhen

Chapter 596 Don't worry Hou Qing, the money will be there soon
Not long after Sun Chuanting and Lu Xiangsheng left Beijing for business trips south, Zhu Youjian summoned the remaining cabinet ministers, Zhao Ren Dian, to attend a meeting to discuss what important matters the imperial court and local governments still needed to complete when the winter of the 11th year of Chongzhen was approaching.

"Masters, it's the end of autumn now, and in two more months, the New Year will come. As the folk saying goes, celebrating the New Year is like passing a pass. This can be seen. For ordinary Li people, although the New Year is a festive time, many Taking stock of one year's harvest under the household, there is still a risk of making ends meet.

Therefore, in the future, the local governments should take the main responsibility of helping the poor, and while doing a good job in the construction of farmland and water conservancy, they should also focus on appeasing the people, so that the people under their jurisdiction will not suffer from hunger and poverty, and try their best to help the poor. It survived the winter months! "

As soon as the discussion started, Zhu Youjian decided on today's theme: comforting the people.

Since the second half of the Ninth Year of Chongzhen, after the major thieves in the Ming Dynasty were wiped out one after another, with the strong support of various policies to benefit the people successively issued by the imperial court, many officials in the prefectures and counties below the provinces and provinces in the North have taken action one after another. The lazy and lazy style formed has put the main energy into a series of heavy tasks such as large-scale relocation, land reclamation, water conservancy construction, and road flattening.

After more than two years of continuous and huge money investment, under the instruction of Zhu Youjian, the governments at all levels in Shanxi and Shaanxi provinces mobilized countless manpower to carry out large-scale restoration of ancient water conservancy facilities such as Zhengguo Canal, Qin Canal, and Ling Canal. Coupled with the new measures of digging wells in farmland to resist drought, the newly added fields and the original farmland in most parts of the Northland have been fully irrigated.

Under various unprecedented measures, grain harvests in various places have been continuously harvested, and Zhu Youjian's three-year tax exemption measure has benefited the people. Now tens of millions of people in the vast area north of the Yangtze River have achieved food self-sufficiency. The food stored under the household is enough to cope with the famine, and the hearts of the people in the Northland have been extremely stable.

Zhu Youjian believes that as long as the local government persists in this series of measures to benefit the people, his original goal of eliminating famine within five years will be realized ahead of schedule.

In order to prevent slack, lazy government, and even harm to the people in the government during this process, Zhu Youjian continued to increase supervision, and sent new supervisors and Jinyiwei to various places every year, which has reached the level of deterrence. Purpose.

Zhu Youjian asked these inspectors to go deep into the countryside and villages to visit the living conditions of the people under their households, and then write a written description of the specific conditions of the farmers in the inspected areas in detail, and then report it to the provincial supervisory censor and Jin Yiwei. The Qianhu Office, after a summary review, reported the key problems existing in the government of a certain place to the inner court, and the cabinet convened a department to deal with the matter in detail.

In order to make the censors and Jinyiwei officials sent by them more active and proactive, Zhu Youjian gave them extremely generous material treatment.

All dispatched supervisors will receive a considerable amount of travel subsidies and food subsidies every month according to their ranks and inspection distances. The list and achievements will be approved after Zhu Youjian has reviewed them one by one, which will make grassroots officials feel fair and just to the greatest extent.

After two years of continuous exploration and improvement, this supervision mechanism has been perfected day by day. During this period, dozens of supervisory censors and Jinyiwei generals were promoted and reused on duty.

One of them worked tirelessly and worked tirelessly. In two years, he traveled to all the villages in the prefecture and counties. Because of his outstanding performance, he was promoted to the post of five-rank general judge in the Huangzhou government. The official circles of the Northland caused a huge commotion, and also stimulated more generals of the censors to devote themselves more actively to their duties.

The same thing is that in the reports of Yushi and Jinyiwei, some officials with outstanding performance in various local governments will also be included in the report, and then the imperial court will send people to investigate and visit secretly. Also got a promotion.

Among them, in addition to the promotion of officials with professional backgrounds, a few officials who only had the honor of being a student were also promoted to be officials of the imperial court. It can be said that such a blessing to honor the ancestors is extremely rare.

For this reason, Zhu Youjian also specially issued an order to list the backgrounds and achievements of these people and send them to various local governments, so as to encourage the self-motivation of those yamen officials who have no fame and consciously have no hope of promotion.

It worked.

Under these extremely encouraging measures, the vast majority of officials in the entire Northland have voluntarily devoted themselves to practical work, making the entire Northland province glow with unprecedented vitality.

Zhu Youjian knew in his heart that most of the daimyo officials had high IQ and EQ, and many of them did not lack conscience. Teach these.

This has led to their ignorance of how to govern in order to effectively improve people's livelihood and develop the economy after taking office as pro-people officials.Under the habitual thinking formed over thousands of years, the vast majority of people believe that persuading farmers and mulberry is the main responsibility and task of governance. It's out of their jurisdiction.

Since the atmosphere is like this, someone needs to lead and change, and Zhu Youjian's position is just the most suitable.

Don't you know how to do errands in detail?OK, then I will guide you and supervise you.

Since what the ruler lacks is not brains, but thinking, then I will use the charter to guide you and knock on the door of how to govern, and the rest depends entirely on your understanding and action.

Those with good performance will be promoted and reused; those with mediocre performance will be resigned and demoted after the summary of various assessments; those with poor performance will be dismissed on the spot and returned home.

"Qizou Shengshang, under the various measures of the imperial court in the past two years, the plight of food shortage in the North has been greatly alleviated. According to reports from local governments, the official warehouses are full of grain. Even if there is a partial difficulty, the local government will be able to deal with it. In 12, the land reclamation in Jingxiang and the land outside the pass has achieved great results, and our dynasty will successfully survive the natural disasters for several consecutive years.

What the old minister wants to ask is, does the Holy Majesty have other ideas about appeasing the people? "

After the first assistant Wen Tiren stood up and saluted, he asked after Zhu Youjian's words.

"I know what the Chief Assistant said. Right now I'm not worried about the household rations. What I worry about is how to help the people survive the cold winter, so that more people don't have to curl up in a corner and endure the severe cold for several months.

For this reason, the cabinet must write to the local governments to spend appropriate money to buy firewood and charcoal, and distribute them to poor and helpless households.

In addition, the imperial court should increase the procurement of cotton, cotton-padded clothes, cotton-padded quilts, and cotton-padded shoes, and strive to make more households add one more cotton-padded quilt and wear one more cotton-padded jacket, so as to demonstrate our emperor's humanity The love and care for life, and the emphasis on life, this is also the concrete embodiment of my Chinese humanities.

Later, the cabinet issued a document, and each prefecture in the north will allocate 20 taels of silver, and the required taels will come from Taicang! "

"Your Majesty is benevolent, I will be taught by you!"

After Zhu Youjian finished speaking, all the members of the cabinet headed by Wen Tiren got up and straightened their clothes and saluted solemnly to show their respect for the emperor's benevolence.

"Qizou Shengshang, the number of prefectures in the northern region is nearly a hundred, and it may cost nearly 200 million taels. Although Taicang is in surplus for many years, there are still many important things to do in the coming year, and I am afraid that there will be shortages. Worry about the silver! Do you think it is possible to halve the allocated silver? Or, can the internal funds be responsible for a little?"

After the ceremony was over, Hou Xun, who was in charge of the household department, couldn't help but reminded him.

Because of the salt profit and commercial tax and the profit sharing of the Four Seas Commercial Bank, although Zhu Youjian ordered to pay taxes in various places for three years, Taicang's income continued to increase unexpectedly. According to Hou Xun's knowledge, the deposit of silver in Taicang has reached more than four million taels. This is a great situation that has never been seen in many years.

Hou Xun and the head of the household department believe that after the relevant local customs are opened, the income of the imperial court in the 12th year of Chongzhen will have a more gratifying situation, Taicang will become more substantial, and the imperial court will have a stronger control over the local government.

But Hou Xun did not expect that the emperor who can draw money around would actually make such a big move today, which was nearly 200 million taels of silver. This time, Taicang would be half empty. When he thought of the empty Taicang In the warehouse, Hou Xun suddenly felt pain.

"Hou Qing, don't worry, Taicang will soon have a lot of money in the warehouse, and then you should worry about how to spend it, hahahaha!"

　Everyone pay more attention to protection, try not to go out, prepare food and vegetables and other daily necessities, and stay at home honestly.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)