Great Song Super Scholar

Chapter 702
Two days later, Fan Ning published a real-named article on "The Letter" "Where there is endless wealth", which introduced the current situation of the southern continent in detail, as well as various rich mineral deposits, not only gold and silver mines, but also high-grade gold and silver mines. Iron ore and coal mines, the article describes the happy life of the people in the Southern Continent. The article points out that the Southern Continent is not far away, and it only takes [-] days to arrive. He encourages more people to immigrate to the Southern Continent and encourages more businessmen Go to the southern continent to mine.

This is to use public opinion to pave the way. That morning, Fan Ning formally submitted his development and investment plan for the Southern Continent to Queen Mother Cao.

A plan to invest 1000 million yuan in five phases within three years was proposed. The Empress Dowager Cao did not immediately express her position on this plan, and she needed to think about it before speaking.

In the round hall of the Zhizheng Hall, several ministers began to discuss the development plan of the Southern Continent. This was the most important matter that the emperor had suppressed yesterday, and the ministers had to pay attention to it.

The discussion was presided over by the right minister, Fu Bi. In addition to the seven ministers, there were also more than [-] high-ranking officials with real positions such as ministers of various ministries, supervisors, and chief case officers of the third department.

A few more words need to be said here. After the Song army recovered Youyan, the war temporarily subsided. Wang Anshi continued to promote his reform.

Since the founding of the Song Dynasty, the six ministries and the temple supervisors have basically been emptied, and the real power has been controlled by the third division. There are also East and West Courts that have emptied the Ministry of Officials, and the Privy Council emptied the Ministry of War.

In the end, ministers and doctors of various ministries are just titles, and officials take this title to serve in local areas. For example, in two adjacent counties, it is likely that one is a magistrate of the capital after becoming a full-time official, and the other is a county magistrate who has not been a full-time official. .

The official system of the Song Dynasty was very complicated and chaotic. There was neither a fixed number of staff nor a full-time job. There were overlapping agencies. In the end, even the officials of the Ministry of Officials and the Court of Appeals were confused.

This overly complicated official system has brought about a large number of redundant officials who only take money and do nothing, resulting in multiple political parties, extremely low efficiency of the court, and other consequences.

However, the reform of the official system will inevitably involve the interests of a large number of officials, so Zhao Xu adopted Fan Ning's two-step suggestion before, and the first step is to clean up false officials.

Exchange titles and overseas lands for virtual officials, and allow titles to be inherited for three generations. This plan has received the response and support of virtual officials, including Jiedu envoys, defense envoys, observation envoys, governors, prefects, regiment training envoys, Biejia, etc. The false officials were all abolished smoothly, the number of officials in the imperial court was reduced by half, and the monthly salary expenditure was also reduced by hundreds of thousands.

Later, due to the outbreak of war, the reform of the official system was suspended, and now it is restarted as the war subsides.

This time it involves a change of substantive power, so it is more difficult and will violate the vital interests of too many officials.

The Song Dynasty practiced a system where low-ranking officials held heavy power. For example, an official of the third division held the power of a fourth-rank official, but he himself was only a seventh-rank official. Quality rights will undoubtedly deprive a large number of low-level officials of their power. The key is that many small officials have a large number of interest groups behind them.

At this moment, the discussion has not yet started, and the Prime Minister is discussing in a low voice. Ouyang Xiu said to Fan Ning: "The Zhizheng Hall will also be changed, and it will be restored to the Yuanfeng system of the three provinces. It will be implemented soon."

Fan Ning asked with a smile, "How to change it specifically?"

"Take the left and right servants of the Shangshu as the prime ministers, the left servant is also the servant of the door, and performs the duties of serving the middle, and the right servant is also the servant of the Zhongshu, and performs the duties of the Zhongshu order, so as to make full use of the Zhongshu's discussion, the door's review, Shangshu undertakes the functions, but the actual power belongs to Zhongshu.”

"What about political affairs?"

"Shenzhi Zhengshi was renamed Zhongshu Shilang, Menxia Shilang and Shangshu Zuo and Youcheng."

"That is to say, there will be no more affairs in the Zhizheng Hall after the discussion, and the original five counselors will be reduced to four, kicking me out as a privy envoy?"

Ouyang Xiu looked around, lowered his voice and said: "Now the emperor's intentions are not clear, but I personally feel that the Zhizheng Hall's deliberations have somewhat emptied the emperor's power. It will be decided at the court meeting."

The original intention of setting up the Deputy Prime Minister Guoshen Zhizhengshi was to divide the power of the prime minister. Later, a voting system was gradually formed in actual operation. Once the vote was passed, the emperor had little room to express his opinions, which greatly restricted the power of the emperor. In addition, the discussion of the court meeting has also become a fiction. The court meeting passed, but the Zhizheng Hall voted not to pass, and it was useless.

Therefore, Zhao Xu wanted to take the opportunity of this official system reform to restore the Tang system, abolish the voting system of the Zhizheng Hall, and discuss and decide at the court meeting. It was fully reflected in the meeting.

If the voting rights of the Zhizheng Hall were abolished, then Fan Ning, a privy envoy, would not have been kicked out of the decision-making circle.

At this time, Fu Bi walked in, holding a stack of manuscripts in his hand, and he handed over the manuscripts to the officer for distribution.

Fan Ning got the manuscript very quickly, and it really was the development plan of the Southern Continent. It is hard to know that the efficiency of the government hall is so high, and the emperor came up with a complete plan in just two days after requesting it.

The whole plan has five pages and more than 50 words. To be precise, this is also just a five-year plan. Within five years, 12 people will immigrate, about 2 households. million people.

The plan is very detailed, even down to the relocation of the people in those states and counties, but this report does not mention the issue of money consumption at all. It is estimated that this issue must be left to oneself.

Fu Bi coughed lightly, and the round hall immediately fell silent. Then Fu Bi said to everyone: "This discussion is actually very hasty. I originally wanted to discuss it with you in a few days, but the officials specially sent me to the office this morning. Called and asked me to come up with a plan tomorrow, everyone, let’s take a look! It’s the plan you have in hand.”

Han Jiang held up the manuscript and said: "Fu Xianggong, I took a quick look at it. It said that 2 additional troops will be stationed and [-] Japanese miners will be recruited in the near future. First of all, I want to know, when does this near term mean?"

Fu Bi said, "Within this year."

"Has the 2-man military camp been built yet? Let's use tents! You can recruit 10 Japanese miners. According to management, each miner has to advance five months' wages to their families, and each person is 100 taels of silver. Ten thousand taels of silver, our finances are very tight now, can we afford this money?"

Fu Bi looked at Fan Ning, Fan Ning could only smile wryly and said, "I also handed over a development plan for the southern continent to the Queen Mother today, but it focuses on money and expenditure. I hope the Empress Dowager will allocate 200 million taels of silver this year."

Everyone immediately understood that the development of the Southern Continent was originally the idea of ​​Neiku. Han Jiang asked quickly, "Will the Empress Dowager agree to it?"

"For the 200 million taels of silver in the first year, the Empress Dowager did not expressly agree to it or not, but she made a request that if it is necessary for the internal treasury to bear the development expenditure of the southern continent, a special treasury must be established. The expenditure must be used on the Southern Continent, and it is not allowed to be used for other purposes."

Fan Ning looked at the crowd again, "Do you agree with the Queen Mother's condition?"

Wen Yanbo said slowly: "The Empress Dowager has always been strict with the use of the money in the internal treasury. From the year before last to now, only five projects have been approved, two projects have been approved by the Construction Engineering College and Taixue College, one has been approved by the Jian Salesian Hospital. I remember very clearly that the relief for the disaster victims and the offering to the late emperor each paid a sum, so the Queen Mother's request to build a special treasury is normal and reasonable, and I think it is acceptable."

Fu Bi also nodded, "I also think it's reasonable. We can build a special warehouse for the development of the southern continent."

Han Jiang asked Fan Ning again: "Will the Queen Mother approve the million taels of silver for recruiting [-] miners?"

Fan Ning said with a smile: "As long as the special bank is established, I don't think there will be a big problem."

Fu Bi asked again: "Fan Xianggong, do you have anything to add to my plan?"

Fan Ning bowed slightly and said, "I basically agree with Fu Xianggong's plan, but I would like to add two points."

"Fan Xianggong, please tell me!"

"The first is that I think the number of immigrants is not enough. I hope to immigrate 20 households within five years. Of course, this is just my personal suggestion. Zhizhengtang can consider it, or the report should not be so clear. The number of immigrants can be written from 12 households. to 20 households.

Second, I feel that the report does not reflect the intention of giving priority to refining refined steel. For example, how many prospecting officials should be dispatched first?How many high-level smelting craftsmen are going to send?Where to build a smelter?Using coke for smelting, what is the plan for refining coke?How to build the warehouse on the dock?How to arrange the ships for transporting steel, etc., I didn’t see it in the report, Fu Xianggong, I am afraid that the emperor is more concerned about what I said! "

(End of this chapter)