I was the emperor in the Ming Dynasty

Chapter 596 Official Position Reform
Faced with this situation, instead of stopping Li Tian, ​​he gave them great tolerance.

With the gradual expansion of the Tiangong Institute, the Household Reform Bureau, and the exchange, more and more manpower is required.

Zhou Zhen and Liu Baohe have complained to Li Tian more than once that they are short of manpower.

And Li Tian plans to open several new government offices, such as the Education Department, the Infrastructure Department, the Agriculture Department, and the Shipping Department in the next year.

The manpower needed is more than one.

If a few years pass, Ming Dynasty will start to build colonies overseas.

At that time, the manpower needed will increase exponentially.

On its own, the scale of the current three-year imperial examinations, which only recruits 300 people each time, is completely insufficient.

Even if a job examination is set up and hundreds of people are recruited, it is still nothing.

Faced with the embarrassing situation of insufficient officials, Li Tian discussed the matter with Yang Shiqi and others more than once.

But the opinions they gave, except for recruiting more scholars, did not have any new and reliable suggestions.

After a long time of thinking, Li Tian found a few useful solutions.

One of them is to reduce the number of official positions in the imperial court.

According to historical records, when the Ming Dynasty was in the Hongwu Dynasty, the number of officials was basically maintained at between [-] and [-].

This number is not much different from about 3 in the Han and Tang dynasties.

But after the Yongle Dynasty, the official system of Ming Dynasty began to become bloated.

There are [-] civilian officials alone, and about [-] to [-] generals.

This situation reached its peak during the Wanli period of Zhengde, and it continued without any change until the end of the Ming Dynasty.

This is only the sum of civil and military officials, without counting the number of eunuchs.

As we all know, the Ming Dynasty was the dynasty that employed the largest number of eunuchs. According to incomplete statistics, the total number of eunuchs in all parts of the country was tens of thousands.

In the whole country, there are 3 or [-] high-ranking eunuchs.

Civil and military officials plus eunuchs are nearly [-] small.

Today, although the number has not yet reached its peak, there are still 8 to [-] people.

Even if it is counted from the ninth rank and five stones a month, it will cost nearly 500 million stones just to pay these people a year.

However, the court officials and relatives of the emperor and the relatives of the first grade paid hundreds of stones a month.

Calculated on average, paying them a year's salary would account for [-] to [-]% of all Ming's fiscal revenue.

In addition to the consumption of nearly 200 million troops, the available surplus money left by the court in a year may not even cover the tax burden.

It is said that Daming is poor, and there is a reason for being poor.

With so many officials, it's strange that they can't be poor.

Therefore, Li Tian's first step is to clean up the redundant officials in the court and reduce the official system to the previous level of 3 to [-].

In this way, at least [-]% of the tax burden can be saved for the imperial court every year, which is a huge savings.

Of course, Li Tian didn't intend to directly beat these abolished officials back to their original form and give up.

At this time, when the imperial court was employing people, Li Tian was still reluctant to let these experienced and literate people leave.

But among this group of people, there must be many moths with little talent.

Therefore, in order to examine whether these people have real talents or are useless trash.

Li Tian plans to conduct a large-scale assessment of all civil servants in Daming after the general examination in the coming year.

Anyone who does not meet the standards will be cleared out.

Those with mediocre grades who can still be used will be reduced to the lowest level of civil servants and let them start from scratch with basic positions.

Those with the best grades will be promoted and appointed as appropriate.

In the early morning of this day, Li Tian directly put forward his idea.

Although it was strongly opposed by some people, with the unanimous consent of Yang Shiqi and other cabinet ministers, this proposal was temporarily passed.

However, what is the content of the assessment of civil servants remains to be discussed.

Li Tian had already considered this point.

When he talked to everyone earlier about the promotion of local officials, he actually began to think about the civil service examination.

He intends to take advantage of this assessment opportunity to have these two things go on at the same time.

If this civil service examination can come true.

Not only can Li Tian clear out many useless officials at once, but he can also promote a large number of cadres at several levels to provide powerful help for future in-depth reforms.

It's a good thing.

Yang Shiqi and others agreed to Li Tian's decision after careful consideration.

After the early court, Yang Shiqi and others and Li Tian came to the cabinet to discuss the specific details.

This time not only a few cabinet ministers were present, but also several other ministers from the six departments.

This decision may seem like an understatement, but the impact is far-reaching.

Everyone in the cabinet naturally raised their hands in favor of Li Tian's decision, but the ministers of the six departments have their own little ones.

Generally speaking, if there are more people in that department, it means that department is more important, which means that the minister has more power.

They don't want anyone, and their department is laying off too many people at once.

Before the formal topic started, they rushed to tell Li Tian how important their department was, and there was no one extra.

Listening to their arguing, Li Tian couldn't help but sneer.

In his prediction, the Ming Dynasty in the future will have more than six volumes. If the Education Department and the Infrastructure Development Department grow up in the future, I am afraid that none of them will be worse than the current six volumes.

At that time, they will also draw a separate one.

At that time, there may not be only six departments in the imperial court, but nine, ten, fourteen or five departments.

It is meaningless for them to argue about these things at this time.

Seeing that their quarrel became more and more intense, Li Tian knew that if he didn't say anything, they might argue for a day, so he didn't need to do anything today, just listen to their quarrel.

"Okay, stop arguing, it's not up to you who is redundant, it depends on the number of people who pass the exam in the end.

Instead of arguing about these useless things here, you might as well think about how to compile the examination questions and leave more useful talents for the court. "

Li Tian's words immediately silenced them all, and they all fell silent.

In the past, the compilation of the examination questions was the work of the Imperial College and those great Confucian scholars. Although some of them occasionally participated in it, it was only in name only.

It is really not an easy task for them to show their real skills and compile a set of test questions.

The only one who feels more relaxed is probably the Minister of the Ministry of Justice.

The things they assess are very simple, as long as they are familiar with the Great Ming Law, it is enough, but it is much easier than the other few.

(End of this chapter)