People live in the Ming Dynasty, evil spirits are soaring into the sky

Chapter 445: If the demolition compensation is paid, it will turn into chaos in the whole world
The businessmen and gangsters present all felt that what the Ningbo prefect said made a lot of sense after listening to it.

Even though they are ordinary people, they also think how convenient it would be if a road was built to their doorsteps.

But we have to care about a very realistic problem.

So who will pay for this money?
You have to know that when building a road, he is not just building a section of road.

It may be a hundred miles, five hundred miles, or a thousand miles.

If you want to build a very straight road, you must straighten the bends.

In this process, you will definitely encounter fields and houses of the people in front of you blocking the way. What should you do?
We have no choice but to demolish it and occupy their fields and land.

In the past, when ordinary people didn’t know about compensation, they could only suffer in silence. Even if their homes and land were occupied, or even if their houses were demolished, they could only blame themselves for their bad luck.

Do you dare to ask the court and the government for compensation?
dare not.

If you dare to raise such a question, or even dare to report it to your superiors.

Then a big hat will be put on your head.

You are hindering the development of the court.

Even if you want to go against the imperial court and the government, then you are no different from rebelling, and you will be close to death.

So ordinary people don’t dare.

But if this sets a precedent in Ningbo City, it would be a big deal.

Ningbo City was originally a place with a high concentration of commercial ports.

Now that the Ming Bank has opened here, it has driven the economic development here.

Merchants from all corners of the world gathered here, and they could receive the latest news from the imperial court.

They can also receive the latest policies from the court here. If the people are compensated when a road is built in Ningbo City, then should the people be compensated when roads are built in other places?
Why did many dynasties in ancient times suppress merchants?
It's not that the ruling class cannot see how merchants drive the development of the commodity economy.

It's not that they are short-sighted.

As for public opinion, it is very likely to spread from these businessmen who travel around the world.

For example, if a plague breaks out in one place and spreads to another place, unrest may occur.

For example, if a mutiny occurs in one place and spreads to another place, it may incite some unstable elements.

For example, the earthquakes that occurred in some places were originally only level one earthquakes.

But when certain rumors spread and are taken to another place by those businessmen, they will cause a magnitude ten earthquake.

It is also possible that they will spread it into a major disaster that will immediately affect one's own safety.

These things must be guarded against.

Just as the ancients understood very well.

It is better to guard against people's mouths than against rivers.

Those businessmen come into contact with all kinds of things.

As long as they talk nonsense, no one can stop them from talking.

No one can stop those words.

That would bring great trouble to the court.

As an official, one of the main jobs of the Ningbo prefect is to prevent a lot of controversial things from happening on the ground.

Prevent the spread of these things and cause trouble to the government.

So he pointed out directly who would pay for it, but he was not referring to the money.

At the same time, Guo Feixue must be informed that once this kind of thing happens, it will bring about a chain reaction.

When the time comes, roads will be built in other places, and other officials will have to use silver to compensate the people.

However, not every local government can have the Ming Bank like Ningbo, with so much silver to distribute to the people.

When this realistic issue was raised, everyone present had to remain silent.

Although it can be seen that Guo Feixue and the Duke both want to give an explanation to the people.

So that the people can get certain compensation when they lose their fields and houses, so that their lives can continue.

What a great thing.

If it can be formed, it will greatly improve the lives of ordinary people and the credibility of the government.

But a very realistic problem lies before us.

Who pays for this money?
Moreover, who will bear the consequences of the chain reaction that will be caused in the future?

There are so many businessmen, and if we encourage them to do business, we will have to bear the consequences that they will roam around and spread the news everywhere.

News involving so much money will spread everywhere like explosive news.

It can be said that within ten days, the whole Zhejiang, no, the whole Southeast, will know about it.

It turned out that the road construction occupied their own fields and land, and the government had to give compensation.

Then who will bear this responsibility at that time?
At that time, the government offices that are building roads and occupying people's fields and land will be crushed by these sudden rumors or public opinions.

Are their roads still being repaired?

Do they dare to use the same old method again, labeling the common people as rebels if they dare to oppose the imperial court?

If the deduction is made, it would prove that Ningbo’s decision to provide compensation for road construction was wrong.

That proves that the Duke's slogan is wrong.

It further proves that the court's reform was wrong.

Who would dare to go there when Chen Han was killing people all over the country and blood was flowing like a river among officials and scholars? Who would have the courage to expose that the reforms and changes in the future were wrong?

If we don't continue to expose the truth, who will dare to take such responsibility?

But if we don't put this label on it, who will pay for it?
Will the court do that?

Without such a precedent, would the court dare to just give out silver as compensation?
If Ningbo gave compensation for building this road, it was given by the Ming Bank. Then who will come up with the money to provide compensation for building roads in other places?

This is a huge issue involving so many government departments and so many ordinary people, and it forced officials like the Ningbo prefect to think deeply about the issue of compensation, whether it can be implemented and whether it should be implemented.

Just because Ningbo is a rich place and has the Ming Bank here, it doesn't mean it can arbitrarily introduce policies that will affect the whole world.

Even the Duke's reforms can be considered heresy in the eyes of many people.

But after all, this is still supported by an economic foundation.

Chen Han plundered corrupt officials and unscrupulous businessmen all over the world and obtained tens of billions of taels of silver, so he had the confidence.

However, now that the silver has entered the imperial treasury, the local authorities cannot use it at will.

What will the local government do then?
Apply at each level?

Okay, if there is no precedent, can you give me an example?

The lower-level officials cited the example of the road construction in Ningbo. The higher-ups did not dare to take the risk and put a accusation on the person.

There is Daming Bank in Ningbo, so I can give it to you. Do you have a bank there?
Even if there is, can such a small bank give so much compensation?

If it can't be given, I can't apply here.

And you have provided the people with security, and when they don't get any compensation and start making a fuss, sparking a civil uprising, will they use your head to fight, or mine? Or the heads of higher-ups?

At the beginning, the prefect of Ningbo agreed with everything Guo Feixue said.

But when this matter was made public, the Ningbo prefect felt like the sky was falling.

Because this is not just a Ningbo problem.

It's not that as an official he can't see the real feelings of the common people.

Just as he said, he was not a Jinshi who only studied in the Hanlin Academy.

Instead, he became an official in the local area.

He even experienced the baptism of a great flood and almost lost his life because of it, so he could understand even more how much suffering the common people were experiencing.

It is also easier to understand how cautious the court is when it comes to money.

It is impossible for it to meet the real needs of the people.

If the fields, land and houses of the common people are occupied, there must be a standard for compensation.

Who has the final say on this standard?

What is this standard?
And if the Ningbo road construction incident caused such a stir, and all the road construction in the world required money, the court would have to spend a huge amount of money.

How can local governments afford to build roads?

To be honest, if this big problem is not solved, there is no way to solve this matter.

A more important question is.

If the road construction is passed in Ningbo, compensation will be given.

There may also be such a compensation clause in other places, but then another problem will arise - can the compensation really reach the hands of the people?
In the past, there were many cases of corrupt officials embezzling funds for river repair projects. Some of them had ways to cut corners, and some had ways to squeeze out things from various project funds to fatten their own pockets.

There was no so-called compensation at that time, but they were able to do such things.

Once the land occupied for road construction is opened, compensation will be required.

How many corrupt officials would there be in the world?

Even though Chen Han has killed so many corrupt officials all over the world and rivers of blood have flowed, these corrupt officials are just like leeks, which can be cut one after another.

Just like the hair on your head, you can cut it over and over again, but it will grow again and again.

There are always people who have a lucky mentality, that is, if I embezzle this money, it may not be discovered by the court, so I can live a life of luxury.

These are all practical problems and are issues that must be addressed.

If this problem is not solved, there will be a large number of corrupt officials in the future.

All officials will keep a close eye on road construction.

After all, once a road is built, they can ask for compensation from the higher authorities, and they have the final say on how the compensation is given.

If the imperial court stipulated that if one acre of land from the common people was occupied, the compensation would be ten taels of silver, then if one acre of land from the common people was occupied at the grassroots level, they would only compensate one tael of silver.

The remaining nine taels would either be embezzled by himself or used to make up for the deficit.

What a good reason to apply for funding from above.

What a gaping hole this is.

This is also a piece of fat and juicy meat.

Therefore, this matter will never be as simple as Chen Han, Guo Feixue, and Princess Ning'an thought.

It is impossible for the local government to be so honest and just do practical things for the people without embezzling the money?
On the contrary, they will see this as the only way to make money.

Even if there is no need to build roads in a place, they will apply to the higher authorities for permission to build roads, and then occupy the people's fields and land as much as possible, and demolish the people's houses as much as possible.

They promised to compensate the people at that time, and they will indeed compensate them.

Because they applied for one million taels of silver from above, they dared to embezzle 900,000 taels of silver and took out 100,000 taels of silver to compensate the people.

Even if there is a civil uprising among the people because of inadequate compensation, they have their reasons.

That’s what the court has stipulated, and that’s what we do.

If you are really dissatisfied, you can go to the court, you can go to the Duke.

It was the Duke who did this. It was the Duke who asked us to do this, so this was all caused by the new policy.

Ordinary people don’t know that it was done by these officials.

The common people would not even know that the court’s policies are good, it is all because of the policies that the officials below come up with when they are implemented.

The distortion of the new policy has resulted in the people not getting compensation.

By then, the people will only blame the heavens, the earth and the new law, and will not investigate the disgusting activities of the officials in the middle.

To put it more bluntly, some officials will use this incident as an excuse to deliberately not compensate the people.

Deliberately make the people particularly resistant to the new policies.

In this way, they will use the people's dissatisfaction with the new policies as an excuse to resist or even attack the new policies.

These are all foreseeable troubles, and we don’t even have to foresee them; they are bound to happen.

The prefect of Ningbo was an official, and he understood all too well the high-sounding and hypocritical reasons given by officials.

Even if they were the ones who caused the problems, they could blame it all on the new policy.

This is the reality. The Ningbo prefect saw this reality, so he had to raise it.

Because he respected Guo Feixue very much, Guo Feixue was his savior, and he respected the Duke very much, and the Duke's reforms made people live better.

So he doesn't want this kind of thing to happen, and he doesn't want the new policy to have any problems or a huge loophole when the situation is so good now.

This will give corrupt officials who are already dissatisfied with the new policy a reason to attack it.

He even did not want to see the new policy evolve into all officials in the world attacking the new policy because of the compensation issue for building a road.

This will not only cause suffering to the common people, but will also make it impossible to implement the new policies.

By the time we finally have a good situation, it will be ruined because of this incident.

Even if sacrifice is necessary, he would rather sacrifice some ordinary people.

Even if the new policy does not give the people any compensation, they can be compensated in other places in the future.

Don't open this loophole, which will give corrupt officials all over the world the opportunity to embezzle money and harm the people. In fact, he has good intentions...

(End of this chapter)