A Millennium Aristocratic Family Starting from the Shang Dynasty

Chapter 525 Official Assessment

The problem in Jiangzhou was solved quickly. All officials and nobles were directly killed, and then the whole family was exiled to Lingnan.

The entire Jiangzhou officialdom and honors were wiped out, and even many powerful people were implicated, and the whole family was exiled. Therefore, all the descendants of the nobles and royal families of the Chu State were arrested and screened.

Once they are found to be related to the old Chu witches, they will all be killed.

If this action continues, most of the powerful people in Jiangzhou will be eliminated.

When Da Qian attacked the Chu State, he did not liquidate the nobles and royal families of the Chu State. He only abolished their titles and confiscated half of their family wealth. In fact, they still had the upper hand in the local area based on their strength.

It is precisely because of this that these people dare to make small moves.

The incident in Jiangzhou was declared to be caused by witchcraft. There was a reason why Chu witches used the name of Taiyi to collude with officials and nobles to deliberately rebel. Now they have all been killed. Everything about the poppy was concealed and covered up with witchcraft.

At the same time, Wang Yi's edict was also sent, all the poppies were collected, and the valley was blocked by the army. All poppies can only be collected by the royal family, and in order to ensure that there is no interference here, Wang Yi designated this area with a radius of 20 miles as the imperial village.

The entire Jiangzhou matter was quickly dealt with, and Jiangzhou was also taken very seriously by the court because of the poppy issue. From now on, those who hold the position of Jiangzhou County Sheriff will basically be the confidants of the royal family.

The incident in Jiangzhou caused an uproar in the court, but it quickly calmed down because of the court's vigorous and resolute handling of the matter. Many people started running around to get an official position for their family.

It is another year of assessment, and the imperial court evaluates the performance of officials from all over the world. Daqian has formulated a complete official promotion system. Only those who have passed the assessment for three consecutive years will be promoted after reporting to the emperor for review. If you fail the assessment for three consecutive years, you will be demoted. If the result is equal, encourage one or two, and then be transferred in four years.

Once this evaluation system was implemented, many talented officials were promoted and some mediocre people were demoted.

There are many evaluation items for the imperial court. The first is household registration and land, the second is taxation, the third is water conservancy projects and road maintenance, the fourth is whether there are unjust, false and wrong cases, the fifth is feedback on peasant and soldier issues, and the sixth is jurisdiction. In addition to solving the problems of banditry and rebellion in the area, there are also measures to encourage farmers to grow mulberry trees, provide loans for young crops, etc.

A hundred years after the founding of the country, many things have basically been fixed, such as land. Most of the wasteland has been reclaimed, and it is no longer realistic to expect a lot of growth. There is also taxation. In countries where agriculture is the mainstay, taxation growth is also very slow. Unjust, false and wrong cases depend on personal ability. Problems such as peasants, soldiers, and bandits are basically no problem now that the country is in power.

Since these things can be done well, if you want to have outstanding political achievements, you can basically only get extra points from things like unjust, false, and wrongful convictions and encouraging farmers to take loans.

Therefore, officials from all over the country will compete in areas such as unjust, false and wrongful convictions, exhortations to farm mulberry trees, and green crop loans.

Wang Yi looked through last year's official assessment and found that there were not many officials who could pass the assessment for three consecutive years. As long as it was true, these people were capable ministers, so the emperor paid great attention to these people.

Every year in the assessment, Wang Yi will select those who excel in the assessment, and this year is no exception.

Soon those who passed the assessment were selected. In order to prevent these people from committing fraud, Wang Yi would review the political achievements of these people. At the same time, compare with previous data.

If there are major changes, detailed records will be kept, and the reasons and processes will be explained. If there is any doubt about this, the court will send another person to verify it. Wang Yi looked through the information and suddenly stopped.

"Someone, come and get the information from the Qintian Prison last year, as well as the memorials about last year's nationwide famine."

"Wei." Several chamberlains immediately turned around and left to search, and soon found the sealed memorial from the study next to it.

"Your Majesty, we have found it." The chamberlain sent over two memorials.

Wang Yi took the memorial and quickly found what he wanted. In May, there was a severe drought and there was no harvest. The memorial from Qin Tianjian stated that there was a drought in the area and production would be reduced.

In addition to these, the number of local youth loans has increased year by year for three consecutive years. Especially this year’s Qingmiao Loan, almost 70% of farmers have used Qingmiao Loan.

This ratio can be said to be higher than those in disaster-stricken places. You must know that after the disaster, the court will take this opportunity to relocate the population. The number of people using Qingmiao Loan in the next year will only be about half of the previous year. And since there are no relocated people in this place, the disaster must not be too severe, but why is there such a high rate? Green crop loan.

Although the interest rate of Qingmiao Loan is very low, for ordinary people, they will not borrow money unless it is absolutely necessary. The current loan-to-debt ratio is too high and somewhat inconsistent with common sense.

Wang Yi suspected that local officials deliberately forced people to borrow money to highlight their political achievements.

Thinking of this, Wang Yi immediately ordered people to invite the three prime ministers for questioning.

"Your Majesty, I have learned about this young crop loan minister before. Half of it was borrowed by local powerful people." Chao Cuo looked at the memorial and said.

Theoretically, all people can borrow Qingmiao Loan, and the interest rate of Qingmiao Loan is only 15%, which is much lower than other loans. The imperial court originally launched the Qingmiao Loan to help the common people because the tycoons and nobles from all over the country were asking for loans at a minimum of 30%, and many were even 50%. These people used usury to exploit the common people.

After all, the small-scale farmer economy is greatly affected by the weather. Once the harvest is not good, people need to borrow some money to tide over. This time is mostly during the farming period, so it is called Qingmiao Loan.

But this loan is for ordinary people, not for powerful people. After all, powerful people do not need this loan at all. Of course, the court has not explicitly stipulated that powerful people cannot take loans. Even compared to ordinary people, it is easier to recover loans to powerful people.

If it is a loan to a powerful person, then there will be no problem in this memorial. But Wang Yi still had some doubts in his heart. After Xu Shi saw something, Chao Cuo said with a smile: "Your Majesty is worried that others will follow suit and lend young crops to powerful people? If you are worried about this, you will make it clear from this year. Loans to powerful people are not counted in political achievements, so local officials must know what to do.”

"Okay!" Wang Yi nodded.

"Send the inspection censor to Tancheng to see what the problem is with Qingmiao Loan." Wang Yi finally had some doubts, and the three prime ministers had no objections. It was just a small matter, so just send someone to investigate.

(End of this chapter)