Ming Dynasty man

Chapter 697
After pondering for a while, Li Jing nodded lightly: "Then let Jixian be in charge of this matter. But since you are acting for the imperial court, you can discuss with Hengchen in the name of the imperial court and find a position for Jixian. , the grade is tentatively... from the sixth grade, it is very good from the sixth grade, not too high, not too low."

Hearing that Li Jing had set Shen Jixian's grade, Shen Zheng couldn't help being a little disappointed.

According to Shen Zheng's intention, as long as Li Jing agreed to Shen Jixian's job, he would negotiate with Zhou Hengchen to make Shen Jixian a fifth-rank official, but he didn't want Li Jing to block the way ahead of time.

Looking at Shen Zheng, Li Jing smiled and said, "Father-in-law, Jixian is good at doing business, but he may not be good at politics. It's too good to be too good. Don't think about taking all the good things, or you will have problems.

This is what I think, let Jixian be in politics as a businessman, and still have to invest in the bank. Let's set up a chamber of commerce to be responsible for coordinating the development of industry and commerce across the country. This chairman can be appointed by Jixian in the future, but not Now.Now Jixian does not have such a high prestige and ability to serve as the chairman, so we can't give him too high a level now.

Father-in-law, you should understand that if a tree is beautiful in the forest, the wind will destroy it. If the grade is low, there will be few people watching him. When he really makes achievements, it will be logical to promote him at that time, and others will have nothing to say. "

Shen Zheng nodded lightly when he heard the words.

At this moment, Yang Liufeng suddenly said: "Commander, this chamber of commerce coordinates the development of industry and commerce across the country, so it must deal with merchants frequently. I'm afraid there is something wrong with it?"

Li Jing smiled and said, "Are you afraid that the chamber of commerce will speak for the merchant?"

With a slight smile, Li Jing continued: "Shen Xing, you have to understand that the chamber of commerce is originally meant to speak for businessmen, and only by speaking for businessmen can the value of the chamber of commerce be reflected. If it speaks for the imperial court, it is not called a chamber of commerce.

In fact, even if we don't establish a chamber of commerce, many businessmen have already formed a group, just like the Jiangsu and Zhejiang chamber of commerce established by Gu Bingyou, which was established by the merchants themselves.

However, the purpose of the chamber of commerce established by the imperial court is completely different from that established by the merchants themselves. The chamber of commerce established by the merchants will only consider how to maximize their interests, and they will even unite to put pressure on the local government for their interests.

The court established the Chamber of Commerce to communicate with the merchants, balance the interests of all parties, and resolve some contradictions between the government and the merchants.And with the chamber of commerce, the imperial court can understand the needs of the merchants through the chamber of commerce, and then formulate corresponding policies according to the needs of the merchants. To put it bluntly, it is for the better development of industry and commerce. "

Yang Liufeng turned his head to look at Shen Zhengdao after hearing the words: "If it is as the general said, this chamber of commerce is very useful. If you can be the president of this chamber of commerce, then you will be the leader of the merchants."

Shen Zheng nodded repeatedly.

Li Jing continued: "However, Jixian can't be the leader now. As I said just now, Jixian's prestige is not enough. It has nothing to do with money. After Jixian organizes businessmen to do a few big things, everyone If you are convinced by him, you can serve as the president at that time.”

Yang Liufeng laughed and said, "I think it's a big deal for Jixian to organize merchants to transport salt from Chaerhan to the interior this time. Although the imperial court has strict supervision on salt, salt sales have been huge profits since ancient times. There are many rich people in the south of the Yangtze River. It is a salt merchant, if Jixian can help some salt merchants to come out, then he will immediately have a very high prestige among merchants."

Li Jing said with a smile: "Actually, this is a good thing for both parties. The merchants will definitely make money by transporting the salt, and the sale of salt certificates by the court is also a large amount of income."

Yang Liufeng laughed and said, "I'm afraid the income is much higher than the saltworks in Pingyang Mansion."

Li Jingjing nodded: "If the salt merchants can transport the salt from Chaerhan, then we can shut down the salt farms in Pingyang Prefecture. Now many factories in Pingyang Prefecture are short of workers. Let these salt-making workers be released. It just happens to solve the employment problem of Binh Duong Prefecture.”

Yuan Shu pondered for a while and said, "Commander, there is a shortage of manpower in many places. In my opinion, the population policy you formulated should be postponed."

Li Jing shook his head: "The population policy must be implemented. This is for the sake of the future. Although we are temporarily short of manpower, it is because the common people are still reluctant to part with their land. If some farmers become workers, the employment problem will be solved immediately.

As for the idle land after the peasants are converted into workers, they can be sold to the peasants who are unable to work. The peasants cannot cultivate so much land by manpower, so they cultivate it by animal power.

In short, there are many ways to solve this problem, the only one that cannot be used is to encourage reproduction.I have already thought about this issue, and when Zhang Ao is almost ready, he will start to implement the new population policy. "

"The past two years have been tiring for Zhang Ao. Clearing up the land, sorting out the household registration, and counting the population are all the most tedious things." Yuan Shu sighed.

Li Jingdao: "So we will continue to open Enke in the spring of next year. Our officials and officials are far from enough. Many people are doing the work of several people alone."

Yuan Shu nodded slightly.

Although Li Jing has opened courses every year to obtain scholars, the number of people admitted is still in accordance with the original standard, that is, 300 Jinshi and fellow Jinshi. After these people have been trained, the imperial court will focus on training them. Most of them will become officials.In other words, the number of officials that the imperial court fixedly increased every year was only 300 at most.

There are also some people who are not fixed. These people are the candidates who passed the examination in the autumn. The number of candidates will be more, probably several thousand.

But juren may not be able to become an official. If a juren does not want to continue to take the exam and wants to become an official, he can only start as an official and then be promoted to an official based on his political performance.

As for scholars, they can also become officials, but the chances of promotion for these people are much smaller. In recent years, the number of scholars who were born as scholars has been promoted to officials.

In the past few years, there have been hundreds of officials who died and retired each year in Daming, which is basically the same as the number of people who were promoted.

However, the number of officials before the Ming Dynasty was not enough. Therefore, although the courses were opened every year for the past two years, the number of officials in the court was still not enough in the end.

In fact, it is very simple to solve this problem, that is, to suddenly promote a group of juren and scholars to officials.But Li Jing didn't want to do that. Doing that would mean that he could become an official if he passed the examination of a scholar or a candidate, so who would want to spend time learning more knowledge?
If things go on like this, the quality of officials in Ming Dynasty will decline.Li Jing would rather hand over to officials what should have been done by officials, rather than lower the standards of officials.

As for the final solution to the problem of insufficient number of officials, Li Jing has already thought about it, that is, in the future, there will be an age limit for the admission of scholars, candidates, and Jinshi, that is, those who are over 40 years old will not be admitted. By limiting the age, the officials will be younger.

As long as young people do not make mistakes and are not dismissed from office, they can work for a few more years. Within a few years, the number of officials retiring will decrease, and the gap in officials will be filled slowly.

Li Jing was about to discuss with Yuan Shu about starting a department in the spring of the coming year, Xiao Jiu came to report in a hurry, and Zheng Sen asked to see him outside.

Hearing that Zheng Sen asked to see him, Li Jing was startled for a moment, then overjoyed, and immediately ordered someone to bring Zheng Sen in.

After a while, Zheng Sen came in and met Li Jing. Zheng Sen knelt down and kowtowed three times: "The humble Zheng Sen has seen the commander."

Seeing this, Li Jing was displeased and said, "You have already been ordered not to kneel, why are you still kneeling?"

Zheng Sen hurriedly said: "The humble job is different from others. In front of the commander, the humble job is both a subordinate and a junior. The junior should naturally kowtow when meeting the elders."

After hearing Zheng Sen's explanation, Li Jing couldn't help laughing: "My boy, I really feel sorry for you saying that, otherwise, your father will think I treat him as an outsider. But since you kowtow to me If you kowtow three heads, you will also kowtow to all the adults present, these people are all your elders."

Zheng Sen hurriedly said, "That's exactly what it should be."

As he spoke, he turned to Shen Zheng and the others, and everyone kowtowed three times respectfully.

Everyone stroked their beards and smiled when they saw it, and said in their hearts: This kid really knows how to behave, much better than his father.

After Zheng Sen finished kowtowing, Li Jing smiled and said, "Okay, get up, my head is probably swollen. Tell me, did Mr. Galileo bring it back?"

Upon hearing this, Zheng Sen hurriedly said: "Back to the commander-in-chief, a lowly position is a disgrace to the mission, and Mr. Galileo did not take it back."

"What? Is it because the Holy See is not letting people go or is Mr. Galileo too ill to get on the boat?" Li Jing asked.

Zheng Sen hurriedly said: "To tell you the truth, Commander, there are two reasons. After arriving in Rome, the humble officer handed over the Commander's letter to the Pope, but the Pope refused to let him go, saying that what Mr. Galileo spread was heresy, and we cannot let him go." He left the custody of the church."

"Huh? The Pope won't release him? Then how did you do it?" Li Jing asked.

Zheng Sen hurriedly said: "The humble post follows the order of the commander-in-chief and threatens the Pope with force."

Li Jing smiled and said, "I guess the Pope doesn't pay attention to your army and ships?"

Zheng Sen hurriedly said: "Yes!"

"Then did you hit?" Li Jing then asked.

Zheng Sen said solemnly: "The lowly position is the commander's soldier, and this trip across the ocean represents Daming even more. If the old boy doesn't listen to the commander's greetings, that means he doesn't take the commander or Daming seriously." Here, the humble position will naturally teach them a lesson."

Li Jing laughed loudly when he heard the words: "Okay! Good job! This is my soldier of Ming Dynasty! No matter how well you fought in this battle, you deserve to be commended for your courage."

Zheng Sen hurriedly said: "I dare not accept the award. I will not hide it from the commander. In this battle against the Holy See, I lost more than 700 brothers and more than 40 warships."

"Losing more than 700 brothers? More than 40 warships? How did you fight this battle?" Li Jing asked in surprise.

Zheng Sen hurriedly said: "Back to the commander, I didn't agree with the Pope, so I went back to gather troops to declare war on the Holy See. I led two thousand soldiers to attack all the way to Rome, and the Holy See army retreated steadily. The Pope saw the resistance. I can't help it, so I have to seek peace with Beizhi and allow Beizhi to take Mr. Galileo away."

(End of this chapter)