Haisheng Mingdi

Chapter 514 Payday

Shandong.

Dengzhou port is becoming more and more lively now. Even the sea gate of the water city has been expanded to accommodate larger ships. The small sea surrounded by the water city is full of ships. Two water villages and piers were built on the side.

Outside Fucheng and Shuicheng, a new earthen city and a bastion were newly built, and many forts were added.

There was fire in July, but Zhao Gui didn't feel any coolness, the sky was still as hot as a stove, even the wind from the seaside couldn't blow away the steaming heat.

Shenwu Town is in charge of guarding Dengzhou. As officials of the General Logistics Department of Shenwu Town, Zhao Gui and his brothers have been busy here in Dengzhou. Food and salaries, and distribution and transshipment.

Being busy is always good, because of the smooth progress of the Northern Expedition and his hard work, he has been promoted from Zhengba to Zhengqi, and has changed into a dark green official robe.

Even his cousin Zhao Fu was promoted to the eighth rank.

Today is another special day, when the salary is paid in the middle of the month.

At this time, it is always the busiest time for the officials of the General Logistics Department. Fortunately, the money has been counted in advance, and there is money in hand, so I don’t panic, otherwise I don’t know how to face the brothers who are owed wages.

"It's still the old rule. The distribution is in the order of the battalion. When a battalion arrives, the chief town, deputy town, director, general staff, and guerrilla guards from all associations will come together to supervise the distribution, so there should be no mistakes."

Now Zhao Gui is able to stand alone. He is in charge of finance in the General Logistics Department of Shenwu Town. Gui is in charge of the money bag of the whole town, Zhao Fu is in charge of food and grass, and the two brothers are Lao Zhang's right-hand men in the general logistics department.

If he was in the army during the reign of Chongzhen, if he was a civil servant in charge of logistics and food, it would be a fat job. He was in charge of the food and salary of more than 1 horses. up.

But Zhao Gui didn't dare to be greedy or unwilling to be greedy for a penny. It wasn't because he was so noble, but because the entire imperial camp had this kind of atmosphere, and there was no such environment. Besides, when he was about to starve to death, it was the emperor who rescued him. After killing him, and now he can still settle down in eastern Zhejiang, he would not do such a stupid thing.

In fact, even in the logistics of the imperial camp, there has always been no shortage of such stupid people. There are many people who reach out, but they have never stretched out their hands without being caught or cut.

The emperor is merciless in this area, if military officers dare to withhold soldiers' pay, and logistics officials dare to embezzle, they will all die.

Every cent of money embezzled by corruption will eventually be recovered.

There was a guy who was greedy before. His official position is not low. From the third sub-inspector, he is already an important position. Because he is from the Confucius family in Shandong, he took the initiative to vote. Lai Qingxin is a sub-inspector. This is a small governor with great power. He supervises military affairs, manages food and pay, and is also responsible for relief to victims.

In the end, it was found out that the embezzlement of a total of more than 7 taels of silver, grain and materials was embezzled. The emperor personally intervened, and the various ministries interrogated. Finally, the evidence was convincing. .

Although Qufu is still under the control of the Qing army, Kong Fenxun also has a large amount of money from farm and house dealers in Denglai, Shandong and other places. In the end, he copied everything that could be copied, and actually copied more than 49 taels of property. Come.

In the process of copying Confucian sub-patrols, many officials and subordinate staff who handled the case also used their hands to embezzle the properties of the Confucian Mansion. It was originally nearly 50 taels of property, but they finally reported more than 5000 taels of property.

As a result, this incident triggered a larger round of thorough investigation by the emperor, implicating a large number of new Shandong officials and even local tyrants in collusion. Corrupt officials were punished together, and a large number were copied.

They also confiscated more than 100 million taels worth of property, but even so, there were still people who dared to do something to these people's property, and then they were uprooted and swatted by flies.

After this Kongfen inspection case, it can be said that it has greatly shocked the officialdom in Shandong, and shocked these newly attached officials, especially the Kong family who has a special status in Shandong.

Who would have thought that the emperor had such a firm attitude, and even such a tough wrist.

They thought they could work together, collude, and deceive others. Who knew that the emperor's ability in intelligence was extremely outstanding. The traditional factory guards are still active today, and the detective department, editorial office, military intelligence department, and even the staff department are also Good at intelligence.

They thought they could hide it, but they didn't know that they were in control of every move.

After this major case, the corruption situation in Shandong is much better, but it cannot be eradicated. There are always those who are greedy for money and not afraid of death, and the court is also sparing no effort to crack down.

The Chief Inspectorate of the imperial camp, the local governors, governors, sub-inspectors, and even the specially appointed inspectors and censors are all watching, and they will deal with one by one, without mercy.

The emperor said something very straightforward. Now is the time of war, so military law is used. This is the front line. The soldiers fight and sacrifice for the country with their heads up. Those officials are not allowed to embezzle money and food for these bloody sacrifices. Whether it is military generals or civil servants, there is zero tolerance.

Now the military salary of the imperial camp is directly distributed by the logistics. The logistics of the town receive the salary from the logistics of the battalion, and then distribute it to the battalions, and send it directly to the soldiers. Other officers cannot directly contact them. They can only supervise.

So now it is difficult for the imperial camp to eat empty wages and deduct wages like before, and the money is too much.

Before payment.

Zhao Gui once again inspected the silver warehouse, looking at the silver boxes with seals and even lead seals, which were sealed layer by layer to ensure the safety of these salaries.

Every time you go through the hands, you must carefully check and sign for acceptance. If there is any discrepancy, the person who passed the next level has to take full responsibility.

In the Chongzhen period, the imperial court sent additional military salaries to the local government, and the local officials took advantage of the opportunity to increase the payment, such as fire consumption, freight, and even consumption, etc. Originally, an additional [-] cents per mu was levied, but in the end it might actually be levied three or four cents or even four cents. Five cents, but the money that was finally handed over to the imperial treasury was not enough.

When the imperial court wanted to embezzle some more, and finally transferred some to the army, it turned out that before leaving Beijing, it was already much less, and was allocated away by convention. Some were used for other purposes, some were blatantly reduced, and many were directly transferred separated.

The silver was pulled out step by step, and the geese were plucked, and they were constantly embezzled and embezzled. In the end, the court pulled out 200 million taels of silver, and it may have been less than 20 taels in the front-line army.

In the end, the officers at the bottom even had to withhold money, so there was not much money that actually went to the soldiers.

The common people paid for everything, even overburdened, but the money did not go to the soldiers.

This is an important reason for the collapse of the Chongzhen Dynasty. The tax collection was unreasonable, and the people who should be collected were not collected, and the ordinary people who could not afford it were overburdened. Then the money collected was severely corrupted, and finally there was not much money It fell to the ground.

In comparison, the imperial camp is much better.

In the final analysis, the Shaotian court was actually a large-scale warlord, and the incident in Taizhou, Zhejiang Province was initiated by the emperor. From the beginning, he got rid of the imperial court's framework and the bureaucratic group's kidnapping .

To put it simply, the imperial court has special officials for science and morality, namely the Metropolitan Procuratorate and the Sixth Division. right to refute.

The memorial was submitted to the cabinet by the Secretary of General Administration for drafting, and then submitted to the emperor, and then approved by the Supervisor of Ceremonies, and then handed over to the cabinet, which was then handed over to the Sixth Division.

After the approval of the six departments, a copy will be sent to the six departments for implementation.

In this procedure, the power held by the Six Divisions is actually equivalent to the power of the Menxia Province in the Three Provinces and Six Ministries System of the Tang Dynasty. They have the right to refute the emperor's will, that is, if they think it is wrong, they can reject it and refuse to issue it for execution.

have to change.

It is not enough to change it, and it is still rejected.

This power is very great, because it is the right to directly deny the imperial decree, and the way of doing things that has been drafted by the cabinet and approved by the supervisor of ceremonies in the Ming Dynasty is actually the decision-making power of the emperor on behalf of the emperor.

Because of the great power of the six divisions, in the party struggles in the last years of the Ming Dynasty, these six and seven ranks were always able to roam the court and stir up wind and rain.

Even the emperor can't deal with these people.

Because they are scientific and Taoist officials and admonishing ministers, and because they hold the right to refute in their hands, if they disagree with the emperor, they will play against the emperor. The imperial power is greatly restricted. If these people start party disputes, then It even gave the emperor a headache.

But in the Shaotian Dynasty, it was completely different.

Zhu Yihai holds great power everywhere, for example, the most important decision-making power, on the surface, is still the cabinet and the ceremonial supervisor, who still have the power to vote and approve red cards, but in fact the real central decision-making power is Zhu Yihai himself. Set up a prime minister's office, recruited some confidant ministers to grant titles, and discussed major matters with them to make decisions, and then the prime minister's office can directly draft edicts and pass them on to the six cabinet ministries.

What is this equivalent to?
It is equivalent to the political affairs hall in the Tang and Song Dynasties, equivalent to the sect of Zhongshu, and equivalent to the draft edict power of Zhongshu Sheren. The decision-making and draft edicts are all in the hands. Unprecedented concentration.

Although the Six Divisions are still there, Zhu Yihai also stipulated that the Prime Minister's Office drafted an edict according to the emperor's will, which can be directly issued to the six departments, provinces, localities, and armies, etc., which means that there is no need to go through the Six Divisions.

They have no right to refute orders issued by the Prime Minister.

The officials of the six departments lost the most important right to refute, so they no longer have the capital to restrict the imperial power and dare to speak harsh words to the emperor.

The sixth department can only focus on the implementation of the cabinet and the sixth department.

In addition, the emperor directly controlled the imperial camp and pro-army that he had built by himself, so the method of kidnapping the court and the emperor that the officials of the Ming Dynasty had tried time and again was completely unworkable for Zhu Yihai.

Just like taxes in various places, the traditional land tax and small silver are still collected by the local government, but the industrial and commercial tax, tariffs and taxes have been collected by a special tax office.

New tax offices have been added in each province, each prefecture has set up a tax bureau, and each county has set up a tax office.

They even have their own tax police.

This is equivalent to the changes from the former Yanfa Road, Duliang Road, and Water Conservancy Road. In the past, they were divided into guards and patrols to prepare coastal defenses. The little governor is completely above the magistrate.

Some other original miscellaneous roads were reorganized into various specialized departments, directly subordinate to the governor, and vertically in charge of the professional affairs of the prefecture and county.

Local officials, in terms of taxation, can only directly collect and manage land tax and land tax, and other taxes are directly managed and collected by the taxation department, forming two systems of local tax and national tax.

Some of the taxes collected by local officials are kept for use, and some are shipped and handed over.

As for the national tax, the local tax bureaus are directly under the jurisdiction of the collection, and there are strong guarantees from the tax inspection camp.

All these have weakened the local government's ability to intervene in taxes. Taxes and money are no more than their hands, and it is difficult to be greedy.

The tax bureaus, which belong to the special yamen sent by the provinces, are managed vertically, which is correspondingly much better than the original collection situation of prefectures and counties in various places.

These taxes are collected, turned over, then transferred, and distributed, which is a different set of models from the past, and the root cause of the emperor's ability to implement all this is that he has real power.

What is real power?
It's like Chongzhen is the emperor, but he doesn't actually have real power. His power must be exercised through the bureaucratic group, and the bureaucratic group of the entire Chongzhen Dynasty has formed a powerful interest group. It is still a class, not one with the emperor.

But Zhu Yihai has real power, because he has rebuilt the power layer bit by bit by mobilizing troops from the bottom up.The first is the imperial camp he established himself, which holds the real military power. The officers are all single-handedly selected by him, and many of them are from ordinary backgrounds, without such a complicated network of relationships.

With the army, the territory was occupied, and then the new local bureaucracy system was replaced.

This is like when Chongzhen said in Beijing that he wanted to increase taxes by adding two cents of silver per mu, there would be countless people who objected, and even in the end, the extra money was collected, but the court didn’t see the money, and the soldiers still didn’t get paid.

However, if a mountain king who occupies the mountain as the king tells the villagers at the foot of the mountain to charge two cents of silver per mu for protection, he can often do so.

It's even fine to establish some new rules.

To put it a little more broadly, in the last years of Chongzhen, warlords such as Zuo Liangyu, Liu Liangzuo, and Gao Jie wanted to apportion money and food at the local level, and even abolished new regulations, but they were all very effective. In the final analysis, they had mastered real power .

This power has broken and all kinds of constraints, breaking the old balance pattern.

(End of this chapter)