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Amidst the cheers of the soldiers along the road and the people in Songshan Fort, Zhang Cheng followed Hong Chengchou, governor of Jiliao, and entered the Jianwu Gate in the south of Songshan.

Only Liaodong Governor Qiu Minyang and Chief Army Zhang Ruoqi accompanied him and Wu Sangui into the city, while other officials such as Military Constitution Zhang Dou and Procuratorate Yao Gong could only follow behind Zhang Cheng and others.

Not to mention Chen Jiugao, Wang Pu and other generals, no matter which town's general you are, you are not even a fart in front of these civil officials.

Not to mention governors, governors, and other serious courtiers, even military constitutions, procuratorates, and supervisors will not look at them directly. They are also consciously superior.

Of course, there are some exceptions, just like Zhang Cheng would not be like this in front of them. Of course, this is because he has a strong army in his hands, and his military achievements are notable, and he has a backer in both the palace and the court.

Furthermore, as a time-traveler with disordered time and space, Zhang Cheng has no fear of civil officials in his bones, because he is not a warrior born and bred in this world, and he neither understands the horror of using literature to control martial arts, nor has he seen civil servants before. terrible degree.

The reason why Zhang Cheng still showed great respect to the civil servants was because he did as the Romans did, secondly, to hide his ambitions, and the most important third, was to win over the low-level literati.

After all, as a time traveler, he knows the importance of talents to a force group, and he also understands the truth that knowledge is power.

Although it is impossible to become a good general if those illiterate soldiers are not ruled out, even if they become talents in actual combat, their future achievements are extremely limited.

What Zhang Cheng wants is a partner who can keep pace with him, not a pure general who knows how to kill. Of course, he is not disgusted with such a loyal general. It is precisely the existence of such a general that can guarantee his foundation As stable as Mount Tai.

But in addition to this, Zhang Cheng needs someone who can advise him, sort out documents for him, manage local civil affairs for him, manage money, food, military resources and other miscellaneous matters for him.

That's why he tried his best to promote literacy classes in the army and under the rule, especially in the army, it was stipulated that military ranks above the armor commander must reach a certain level of literacy, in order to cultivate talents who are loyal to themselves, able to read and write. Wu's talent.

But even if they know a thousand characters, or even thousands of characters, there are still very few people who can really open up and master the tricks of governing the world.

But Zhang Cheng can't wait for them to grow up slowly, so he needs to try his best to win over the literati of this era, especially those lonely literati who are at the bottom.

They have real talents and learning, but also have nothing to do with the superstructure of this era, and all of them have the extravagant hope of changing their own destiny through knowledge.

Zhang Cheng just wanted to gradually strengthen his foundation and team by wooing them, and finally use them to replace those high-ranking officials who are in the upper ranks but have nothing to eat.

He wanted to use this to complete social transformation, update the atmosphere of the new empire, and use a group of vigorous new nobles to drive the empire to a new glory.

Of course, for those diehards with strong vested interests, Zhang Cheng does not want to knock down all of them with a stick. He will win over a group of knowledgeable ones, defeat a group of stubborn ones, and deter a group of wait-and-sees.

This is enough to make my future steps as fast as a whip, and successfully complete the ambition in my chest!
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In fact, Zhang Cheng also knew in his heart that this method could not completely complete the adjustment of the real social structure. After hundreds or even more than a hundred years, new vested interest groups would be formed, and the social class would follow. solidify.

Zhang Cheng is also very clear about all this, but looking at the history of the succession of dynasties in ancient and modern times, apart from the usual corpses littering the fields and the people being displaced, has there ever been a time when those aristocratic families did not benefit in the end?
After all, in this world where imperial power does not go to the countryside, ordinary people can only see local gentry in their eyes, so many successful people in history were able to achieve their final glory precisely because they united the vast number of low-level gentry.

Without exception, Zhang Cheng also chose this shortcut to success. The reason why he made such a choice was not because he was afraid of the power of the squire clan, but because he wanted to unite the lower gentry to defeat the upper gentry.

In this way, fresh blood will be injected into the empire, the rigid political system of the empire will be changed, a shot in the arm will be given to this belated empire, and it will become a powerful empire with the spirit of adventure and expansion.

After all, the current era does not yet have the conditions to carry out the transformation of the entire social class, if the form of social transformation of later generations is forcibly copied.

Let’s not talk about whether this way of doing things can be successful, just say that the social changes caused by it will inevitably exceed any previous dynasty change, and it will also make ordinary people at a loss and cause great social turmoil.

There is reason to believe that such social changes, under the resistance of the gentry who control the discourse power at the bottom, will inevitably cause great social panic, and then will fail in the full counterattack of the big gentry class.

As a latecomer who has seen the world, Zhang Cheng clearly knows what is called "making the best use of the situation" and "step by step". .

There is no distinction between high and low in any method of social change, only the question of whether it is consistent with the current social process, as long as it is a change method that matches the current society, it is the most correct.

Zhang Cheng firmly believes that in this historical period, the influence of the gentry class on the people at the bottom is still not shaken. After all, there are not many people who can read and write. The local people are done.

Over time, local "earth emperors" were formed one after another. They almost completely controlled all local resources, and even the county magistrates appointed by the imperial court did not dare to offend them easily.

In fact, in the early years of the Ming Dynasty, due to the extensive management of basic administration in the previous Yuan Dynasty and the existence of various small interest groups in the localities, it was difficult to issue orders from the central government to the localities, and it was extremely difficult to implement government orders. .

Therefore, he adjusted the organizational form below the county level. He took one hundred households as a statistical unit, called "Li", and compiled every ten households into an "A", and selected one of them as the "Li". "Jiashou" is the manager of these ten households.

Then select a "li chief" from among them to be responsible for the management of the following ten "a heads". This li chief will be directly responsible to the county government. Adjudicate civil right and wrong lawsuits.

The most critical part of the system designed by Zhu Yuanzhang is that no matter the "Jia Shou" or the "Li Chang", they are neither appointed by the imperial court nor directly selected from the grassroots, but a rotation system is implemented.

Among these one hundred households, they are ranked first according to the amount of grain they need to pay to the imperial court, and the top ten households among them will take turns to serve as "li chiefs". The term of each household is one year. Take a photo of a mile."

And in each Jia, one person is selected as the "Chief Jia" according to the amount of rations that need to be paid, and their term of office is also one year.

Prior to this, common affairs such as urging taxes and taxes were done by local wealthy households and squires. This made it easy for a certain family to become bigger and stronger locally, thus creating a local "earth emperor".

But now the lijia system designed by Zhu Yuanzhang implements the method of "the emperor takes turns to sit in my house next year". Ten people with more food and grain have the opportunity to seize this power. Naturally, it is possible to avoid the dominance of one family, and eventually the tail will not lose.

This is like cutting a cake. It turns out that the "knife" is always in the hands of one person, and everyone has to obey him. Naturally, he has the greatest power. Over time, everyone gets used to it, and naturally they will absolutely obey him.

But the current situation is that several people have a knife in their hands, and everyone has the opportunity to go up and cut it, so the authority of the person who was originally responsible for cutting the cake is naturally not as good as before.

Moreover, mutual competition will naturally lead to mutual supervision and mutual restriction, so the occurrence of a dominance by one company is greatly avoided.

The essence of this system is that while transferring the power of the imperial court to the grassroots Lijia, it has also made further subdivisions to ensure that power will not always be concentrated in the hands of a few people.

This move seems to make the grassroots governance more decentralized, but in fact, because of the situation of "a group of dragons without a leader", it further weakens the power of the grassroots gentry over the central government, and instead strengthens the authority of the central court.

In fact, the so-called "imperial power does not go to the countryside" does not mean that the imperial power cannot control the people at the lowest level, but whether it is necessary for the imperial power to control the lowest level, or whether it is worth spending more manpower and material resources. do this.

Why do you want to say this?

Because, if the imperial power is completely extended to every corner of the bottom of the society, it will inevitably incur extremely huge management costs. Taking a country of the size of Ming Dynasty as an example, as the ruler must consider a "cost and benefit" balance question.

Furthermore, officials representing the emperor to exercise the power of the imperial court will inevitably have some kind of connection with local forces, thus forming an interest group against the central court.

Therefore, the issue of "imperial power not going to the countryside" cannot be simply discussed as "going to the countryside" or "not going to the countryside".

It is not actually a "yes or no" question, but a question of degree, which explores how much autonomy the center has ceded to the localities.

On this point, the degrees of successive dynasties are different. Those with few transfers, such as the Qin Dynasty, will make the central government pay huge management costs, and the grassroots will be exhausted under the power of the imperial power; while those with many transfers, such as the Han Dynasty, will It is easy to make the place bigger and form an interest group against the imperial power.

According to the current system of the Ming Dynasty, it is actually quite adaptable to the current social development process, but as the social class solidified, vested interest groups gradually began to control the local area, and this situation was especially obvious in the last days of the dynasty.

What Zhang Cheng wants is to destroy the current interest groups and use the newly born honorable group to redistribute social resources, so that the dynasty can continue.

And inject the spirit of adventure and expansion into this dynasty, so that it can maintain contact with the world, walk out of a different world in the torrent of history, and become a leader among the nations of the world.

As for whether this dynasty will become the No. [-] brother in the world in the future, it is not something he can imagine now!

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The people around started talking about which general was walking behind Governor Hong Chengchou, who was able to accompany Qiu Futai personally.

They were naturally familiar with Wu Sangui, and soon someone recognized him, and they all commented: "Look, it's General Wu Ningyuan, that's the nephew of our Grand Marshal, and a student of Governor Hong..."

"Which general soldier is that over there? He looks younger and more handsome than General Wu..."

"I heard that Xuanfu's army has repeatedly made great achievements. First, they killed the Tartar Prince Yu Duoduo, and then they killed the Tartars and broke the siege of Jinzhou. Could it be that the general of the Xuanfu was the commander?"

"Yes, it must be General Zhang of the Xuan Mansion. I heard that General Zhang killed the Tartars a few years ago, and he is the two sons of Dabeile Daishan..."

"That's right...that's right...the two Tartars, Ma Zhan and Yue Tuo, were also killed by Marshal Zhang of the Xuanfu. It's amazing...it's amazing..."

"So... isn't it stronger than our Grand Master Zu... at such a young age... to have such great achievements... I'm so good..."

Hearing the voices of discussion from the surrounding crowd, Wu Sangui didn't take it seriously at first, but the more he listened to it, the more unpleasant it became, and he couldn't help secretly hating why he met Zhang Cheng on the way here.

After entering the Jianwumen, everyone walked forward all the way, and soon came to the Governor's Xingyuan on the north side of Songshan Fort. There were red and colorful decorations everywhere, creating a festive atmosphere.

The incense burner, desk and other things have been set up in the Xingyuan hall, and the eunuch Wang Chengen, the supervisor of etiquette, is sitting with another father-in-law, chatting and drinking tea in the grand teacher's chair on the left.

Zhang Cheng followed behind Governor Hong Chengchou, he quietly raised his eyes and looked up, and saw that Fang Zhenghua's father-in-law was just like Wang Chengen, with a white face and no beard, probably because of the good maintenance, but he couldn't tell how old he was?
However, it is estimated that he should be around 40 years old. Fang Zhenghua's face is slightly rounded, with a flushed face, and his complexion is very good, and he looks a bit elegant when sitting there.

As the officials and generals entered the hall one after another, Wang Chengen said to Fang Zhenghua: "Everyone is here, Eunuch Fang can read the imperial edict."

Fang Zhenghua seemed to have great respect for Wang Chengen, he smiled modestly and said, "With the prince here, how can it be our family's turn to read out the imperial decree, and ask the king to openly announce the decree."